The Captain's Papers
by Courtesy
Summary: Replete with adventure, romance, mutiny, and witty quips, the valiant Captain Amelia documents her side of the thrilling story of Treasure Planet (Author also stands on head to entice you to click here).
1. Legend of Flint's Trove

**Disclaimer:** Treasure Planet and all characters presented in this story belong to Disney, and not me. I claim no ownership, and I receive no profit through this story. This is for my own enjoyment and yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah and all that other disclaimer prattle.

**Author's Note:** This is a story recounting the voyage to Treasure Planet through Captain Amelia's eyes. No—now, wait! Wait! Before you go away thinking 'Ah, this has already been done before—what was Courtesy thinking?' I want you to at least give it a chance. I've entertained thoughts of doing something like this before, and now I've finally posted it and I hope you'll approve. Please drop a review off after reading these two beginning chapters telling me what you think, and if enough of you feel it just isn't original enough for you, I'll quit pursuing it. Sound like a deal? Okay—we shake like so—and now, go ahead and read, and I hope you enjoy.

One more quick thing: if you recognize a few little details in this story, it's because it parallels the few little details in the story by Homeric-Simile called _Argentums Perspicere_ (with Homeric-Simile's permission, naturally). But the little details are really the only thing that connects the two stories; _The Captain's Papers_ certainly stands on its own.

**The Captain's Papers**

**Chapter 1**: Prologue, and The Legend of Flint's Trove

Since these fine gentlemen have asked me to write down the whole particulars of the voyage to Treasure Planet, holding nothing back except the true location of the place and exact route followed to get there, it can be little more than expected that I should comply the favor asked of me by my friends. The fine gentlemen of whom I speak deserve introduction to those who do not know them: Doctor Delbert Doppler, the financier of the voyage, has been most dedicated to the expedition's recount, as well as young James Hawkins, ship's boy, also has imprinted upon me the obligation of this documentation. As for me, I am Captain Amelia, hired as captain of the voyage to Treasure Planet by Doctor Doppler, and now the appointed narrator of this recount. I cannot tell you concisely what Doctor Doppler and Jim Hawkins have done to be of such importance to me; you must discover that, if it holds to your fancy, on your own.

This voyage began as most any voyage might begin for my first mate and me- my first mate, you must retain, being a Cragorian man named Mr. Arrow. He and I had allowed ourselves a few months on land, reposing after a long trade voyage to the distant Karian Abyss. We had taken up residence in a modest little inn on The Spaceport Cresentia, a port near the planet Montressor, hence known more widely as the 'Montressor Spaceport'. The planet Montressor I had never taken the time in visiting myself, but I knew it as it was charted- a mining planet- and, not having frequently dealt with Montressor's ore transport or line of trade, I had never felt the need to explore it. However, I busied myself by reading its newspaper_, The Lookout's Report,_ during my repose, and found in the employment section an ad that called for an experienced captain for a 'top secret' interstellar expedition. I laughed at it outright, I remember, and for a bit of fun, I had Mr. Arrow look into it.

This, as you may have already imagined, was the exact space-captain query Doctor Doppler had placed for the Treasure Planet expedition, but little did I know it then. Yet, I shall never forget the next week when Mr. Arrow came back with the information about the advertisement I had so heartily demanded for my entertainment. I can recall the time of day and everything about it as if I were living it now: I had perched myself at a desktop near the window with some paperwork of common variety, pen and ink in due supply, in preparation to toll mine and Mr. Arrow's wages earned from the Karian Abyss importation. I had also just poured myself a small cup of tea—Earl Grey, I believe it was—to sip while I worked. The time was half-passed seven, and Montressor's sun had made it a good part of the way above the horizon of the Cresentia. There was a rapping at my door a few minutes after I had sat down to my vocation, and, monotonously, I called without a glance in the direction of the door for the person to enter.

Mr. Arrow was the one to appear at the threshold. He carried a sheet of paper with him, with two visible creases horizontally lining the body of it, in one hand, and a waxed envelope addressed to him in the other. He held up the letter. "It is to find a hoard of gold," he said at length.

I paused in my work and peered up at him. The letter remained stationed between his fingers in the air, Mr. Arrow motionless as I lifted my eyes to it. "What," I asked, "is to find a hoard of gold?"

He brought the letter down and tapped it with his rocklike fingers. "This," he said, beginning now to walk into the room, "this letter from an astrophysicist named Doctor Delbert Doppler plainly states that the expedition you had me look into is one that chases after treasure."

I leaned in my chair upon the backrest and reached for my tea. I said nothing, and he continued. "I realize, Captain, that I sound as if I misunderstood the man. Indeed, I felt I had myself, after my initial reading of his note. But after a second reading, and then a third to make doubly sure, I found I was not mistaken. Treasure. He thinks he has a map that leads to treasure."

I smiled at the notion from behind my teacup. Treasure has never been a very reliable thing to base voyages upon; one never knows when the map is a fraud, or how many people have already had at it and stolen away with the riches. Worst of all, it attracts the very dregs of society—people you can never be absolutely certain you can trust. Indeed, every independent space-captain with any head on his shoulders at all avoids such things as treasure hunts, and I silently wished this Doctor Doppler good luck in finding any space-captain with no head whatsoever.

"Surprise, surprise, Mr. Arrow," I said as I sat there, grinning away. "I told you this man's 'top secret' quest would bear some amusement for us. If you would indulge me, sir—what unlucky blackguard's gold is he chasing after? Blackbeard's? Captain Hook's?"

"…Captain _Flint's_."

I shall own that I swallowed hard upon the tea that I had begun to take and tossed myself into a fit of coughing for utter surprise. Mr. Arrow could have named any one of a number of legendary troves stashed away—for I know a good deal of them from my crews and their favorite fairy-tales—and I would have taken it with a light-hearted laugh and forgotten it. But Flint's legendary trove was of a very different category.

I believe a bit of background is in order for you to fully understand the shock of Doctor Doppler's intended destination. As the story tells it, around one hundred years ago, a space-pirate by the name of Captain Nathaniel Flint, who could get away with limitlessly sized raids and thefts, ruled as one of the most notorious criminals the Etherium has ever known. Not because of what ship he drove or how massive his fleet was (in fact, he had but one crew and a rather small vessel), but rather of what he could do. This is what makes the legend seem such a fallacy: Captain Nathaniel Flint could disappear. Ship and all—he could make them all vanish "without a trace".

Of course, this was a ludicrous concept that most people should and did wave away as a complete lie. Especially when Flint disappeared entirely. Legend staked the claim that he died protecting his unspent trillions that he had hidden away on an uncharted planet. This drew the line between the reality of Flint and the exaggerations of Flint; history, as you might call it, turned into myth, which turned into legend, which finally turned into fantasy.

I call it history. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I put away my teacup, coughing a little, and echoed incredulously, "Flint's trove? _Flint's_ trove?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Is he mad? Really, Mr. Arrow, is he a madman? Tell me, I can take it."

Mr. Arrow shook his head. "No, ma'am. My take on it is that he is simply excited. He seemed so in his letter."

I gave a last cough from my ill-swallowed tea in reply. Then I asked him, "Does he have a map?"

"He says he does, and I quote," and Mr. Arrow read aloud from the letter, "'it took a bit of luck and a great amount of danger to obtain it. But the map is one of genuineness, this I can promise you.' Captain, let me be the first to tell you, this map he has obtained is the biggest and cruelest con in the galaxy. However, it must also be the most convincing; it has effectively fooled Doctor Doppler."

I stared at Mr. Arrow with a vague expression, and then I raised my head and said dryly, "Mr. Arrow… I am in a position to believe that this map Doctor Doppler has obtained is one of the most obvious cons that either you or I have ever seen. Either way, the simple probability that it is counterfeit is... Well, leave that for the moment. Tell me, then, Mr. Arrow, how he obtained this map. Did he purchase it? Surely not—that should have told him immediately that it was a con."

"That is what I assumed myself, Captain," Mr. Arrow assured me, bringing the letter back up to look at it. "However, he did not buy it; on the contrary, it was a sort of a gift."

"Ah, then it is hoax!" I concluded loudly. "Who would give away such a thing as a treasure map? Not even a spoiling grandmother would…"

Mr. Arrow raised a hand. "Please, Captain, first let me finish," he insisted. "He states," and Mr. Arrow glanced at the letter, "…rather lengthily, Captain, that the map was bestowed upon a fifteen-year-old boy—"

"_Boy_?"

"Yes, Captain. In his letter, he states the map was given to a young friend of his, James Hawkins, by an old spacer just before he died. At first they didn't know exactly what it was, says he, but later that night Jim—he must mean the lad Hawkins—opened it up and revealed it was indeed a map to Treasure Planet."

I again sat back in my chair. I cannot say my state of emotion was exactly exasperation, but I must say it was certainly some form of it. "A map to Treasure Planet," I murmured to myself, but loud enough for Mr. Arrow to hear, "what idiocy!"

"I suppose so, Captain."

"You suppose so, do you? It's ludicrous. It's criminal, it's so ludicrous."

"A real oddity, if I may, Captain."

"A real oddity. Yes. Definitely."

An oddity, certainly, I added silently to myself, but what an oddity! Treasure Planet! Treasure Planet, and Flint's legendary hoard, presented here to me as if it were right before my very nose, and if I reached out just enough – There! —it would be mine. Yes, it did seem all very easy, if the fallacy was actually the truth, and such a planet existed. Then, all I would have to do is follow a map and I would be the first captain since one hundred years to set foot on the place. It did seem a simple task for such an achievement.

Here, I cannot tell precisely what happened. Something in my mind fell, like a hammer, onto the small corner of my muse. Suddenly it was all too clear what I would do with Doppler's piece of information. I sat up again and turned back to my paperwork.

"Mr. Arrow. If you would please wave a reply before the Doctor's nose, you would be of exceeding help to me."

Mr. Arrow was thunderstruck, I believe. "_Reply_, Captain? But, you don't reply to these sorts of situations," he gestured with the note he still held in his hand, "unless you mean to accept them!"

"Precisely, Arrow. I'm glad to know you are so in tune with my habits- it shows me it's time to break them and gain new ones."

Mr. Arrow furrowed his brow. "Captain, you can't be serious. We cannot sail away to a planet we know is nonexistent using a map that we know is a horrid hoax! Let someone else get lost in space—"

"Oh, Mr. Arrow!" I turned round in my seat to face him again. "Really, where has your sense of adventure gone? We don't know that this planet is nonexistent. Who has the right to say Doppler's map is a farce, if no one knows for certain? Tell me the truth now, Arrow—aren't you the tiniest bit curious as to whether or not any of this might have some truth to it?"

Mr. Arrow sighed to himself. He glanced at the note he held in his hand, standing habitually in the position of attention. I suppose I knew right off that what I was proposing was betraying everything he held in his better judgment. However, the prospect of being the captain who brought a ship, a crew, a nutty astrophysicist, and especially a boy safely to and back home from the legendary Treasure Planet seemed to me too good to let slip away. Ludicrous as it all sounded, a certain hunch told me that this could have the potential of surfacing some wonderful things; all one had to do was depend on one's imagination. Mr. Arrow, however, was never much one for the imagination.

He looked at me. "I shall follow the orders my Captain deems… _best_," he said. I clapped my hands together. "There's a good man, Arrow! Now, if you'll tell that Doctor Doppler we're ready to cast off at any moment he is prepared to, all will be well at hand."

Mr. Arrow left me to my work in his usual, quiet civility, respectfully touching the rim of his ebony tri-cornered hat as he did so.


	2. ShipShape and Seaworthy

**Chapter 2**: Ship-Shape and Seaworthy

Had I realized Doctor Doppler would take my 'ready to cast off at any moment he was prepared to' statement so literally, I don't think I'd have sent him the exact words. We left two weeks after Doctor Doppler and Mr. Arrow had made according arrangements. Doppler, soon after his initial contact with us, had hired an entire crew through a single galley cook who must have possessed intoxicating persuasive powers. Not only did he hire the hands on the spot (including the cook), he packed his bags three days ahead of schedule and declared that we would cast off that very week, he was so prepared.

The entire goings-on went against everything every successful voyage I'd participated in required. I was accustomed to having at least three month's time for renting a ship, hiring a crew I personally had communicated with, and overall preparations ensuing that. But Doctor Doppler had arranged everything in a six-week period, never once stopping to think of the consequences such hasty preparations might render.

To top the Doctor's doings, I never personally met the man before the voyage. Mr. Arrow stated the deal was sealed entirely through letters and telegrams, never once face-to-face, like most voyage overseers I'd worked for tried to do. I suppose I should have taken that as an initiative to resign my berth then and there, but for some reason, I did not. However, not making any personal contact with Doppler proved more problematic than one might first assume. For instance, I never got a look at his alleged map. I received both the longitude and the latitude the map exhibited, so as to chart our course, but never a glimpse of the map itself. Therefore, I never got the chance to proclaim it a fake, which would have allowed Mr. Arrow and me an immediate quit of the entire expedition. Yet, I made no complaint, still enticed by Treasure Planet despite Doppler's odd way of handling things.

And so, on the sixth week following the very first of Doppler's letters to us and three days ahead of the set launching schedule, Mr. Arrow and I laid our repose on the Cresentia to rest and reported to the solar galleon Doppler had hired out for our expedition, the _R.L.S Legacy_.

Early morning found us both at the bridge, Mr. Arrow regurgitating sailing status, weather forecasts of the day, and other such necessaries to me, and I busying myself with the helm. The morning air was crisp and fragrant, scented of the dew and the very near Etherium. The sun had only recently begun to rise, and one could just make out the thin red line swimming above the horizon of the Cresentia. There was little sign of a cloud in the sky, and the fading stars could still be seen glimmering from the cosmos. It was a cool morning, but not cold, and a small breeze was coming in from the east. I gripped one of the handles of the helm.

"The high today, Captain, will be in the mid-nineties, the low in the mid-to-high seventies. There is a thirty-percent chance of rain, and the breeze should pick up at around eight, but not to worry—it won't be strong enough to hinder our launch. The—"

I pressed my will against the handle I had in my hand and turned the wheel; what interrupted Mr. Arrow was the shrill whine of the rusty helm. Mr. Arrow looked up at me.

I gave him a look of modest irritation. "Look what the good doctor has hired out for us, Arrow: the bloody helm squeaks."

Mr. Arrow smiled, amused. I released the handle of the wheel and placed my hands behind my back. "I propose we have a thorough inspection of the place. Take the hold, Mr. Arrow. I'll be aloft." And, with a salute from Mr. Arrow, I took to the riggings and swung myself overhead to a nearby spar. There I had a good view of the deck in its entirety, and with no time wasted, I examined the sails.

I, in actuality, owe the Doctor a bit of credit. The sails really were of excellent quality. The solar thrust-capacity looked to be around fifty percent in the total sail absorption on the mainmast, and thirty for the sails on the fore. The jibs connected to bowsprit looked fine, even from where I stood in the crow's nest on the mainmast. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to account for the sails on the mizzen, for a gruff voice reached my ear, faintly. Instantly I perked my left ear, and heard two men, one of them I recognized to be Mr. Arrow, as they began to speak with one another. I slipped along the spars and into the rigging agilely, silently making my way back to the mizzenmast overlooking the bridge.

The man was one of my hands reporting for duty; the very first of the hands Doppler had hired without me. Raising both my ears, I could hear Mr. Arrow giving him the needed information for him to do his work. I gathered two very important things about the man: his name was Schwartzkopf, and he was a roper.

From that moment forth, the crewmen slowly appeared and accumulated. In addition to the early bird Schwarzkopf, Pigors, Aquanoggin, and the multi-limbed Hands made up the group of men who manned the sails and astral anchor. The riggers, Mackriki, Oxy, Moron, Greedy, Birdbrain Mary, and Dogbreath, were an uneducated, brainless lot who used only experience and no real intelligence to unfurl or take in the sails and care for the solar crystals below deck.

By and large, Doppler's choice of crewmen had not impressed me. They were grim little men, slow and scowling. I took an immediate disliking in them all, and put them to work in their duties with little more than an introduction. By the time it was late morning and the gravity specialist, the tentacle sporting, Flatula speaking wonder called Snuff, made his appearance, I was practically prepared to make a cool leap off the ship.

Unfortunately, I had seen nothing compared to the galley cook.

Going strictly by what I gathered of John Silver when I first met him, he was honest; a dim-witted fellow, like all the others, who might have seduced the Doctor into hiring this entire muddle of crewmen by smiling sweetly, telling him he'd appreciate it greatly, that they were his mates, that he knew them all, and all were pure. What interested me briefly was that he was a cyborg: a man who had his right arm, leg, and eye, as well as a portion of his head, replaced by mechanical parts. A horrible accident must have befallen the witless lout, I thought to myself as I landed on deck from the spars, but, smartly irritated as I was, I found no sympathy for him, and inquired on the possibility of hindrance concerning his physical speed. He grinned mindlessly at me for a small period, as if tossing around in his head what could possibly slow him down. Then he replied:

"Ah, no, ma'am; my poor ol' leg'll get stiff sometimes, but there ain't nothin' a few good wrenches can't fix." And he chuckled aimlessly.

I took him in with a swift glance. He was heavy, unshaven, and as empty-headed as an eggshell. I hoped to myself that he possessed the ability to at least cook without torching himself. I turned my gaze to Mr. Arrow. "Excellent," I said. "Mr. Arrow, see that our cook—"

"John Silver," John Silver beamed.

"…_Mr_. _Silver_ reaches the galley. We wouldn't want to see him getting into any trouble."

I remember leaving a particular emphasis on the word 'trouble', and Mr. Arrow nodded to me, the agreement of the word 'trouble' presented only through his eyes, which were slightly shadowed by his ebony hat. I returned to the sanctuary of the crow's nest, now convinced that Doppler would be the only intellectual reassurance of the entire voyage besides Mr. Arrow.


	3. I Meet the Doctor, and Am Disappointed

**Chapter 3**: I Meet Doctor Doppler, and Am Disappointed

The boy Jim Hawkins was almost a shock to me. Having (for the small interval of time between Doppler's first letter and this morning) forgotten him entirely, his appearance was of sheer intrigue. But he came back to my mind as quickly as he'd left, and I made no fuss over him, much too eager to at last meet this odd fellow Doctor Doppler and launch upon our quest to Treasure Planet.

Mr. Arrow was on deck, managing the hands, while I was making a last note of the ship and her states, when Doctor Doppler and his ward made their way up the gangplank. I took immediate notice of the Doctor, and it is not a wondrous thing that I did so. He was awkwardly pieced together, clad in a copper-plated type of space suit. Complete with helmet, gloves, and a round base, he looked rather the imbecile in the suit, especially considering the suits were unnecessary in the Etherium.

I could hear Doppler clank up the gangway as I made my way back up to the crow's nest. I noted without perturbation that Mr. Arrow and his weather forecasts were correct, and that the breeze was indeed picking up a bit. The manta birds were soaring low over the Cresentia in the cloudless sky; it was by now mid-morning and only a small amount of the provisions had yet to be boarded. I had also spoken with our stout engineer, Meltdown, about that squeaky helm; he was at that very moment tending to it with some oil. By way of the breeze, I could nearly smell it; it was a distinct scent that compelled the senses in a bitter sort of manner. But what was even more compelling than that was the absurd sight of the Doctor.

I didn't take it into offense that Doppler mistook Mr. Arrow for me. Indeed, people have assumed that Mr. Arrow was the captain and not I often before. It never was an offense: it was merely corrected. Nevertheless, Doppler addressed Mr. Arrow as 'Captain', and inquired on the ship-and-shapeliness of the _RLS Legacy_. Mr. Arrow was a pleasant man in his response:

"Ship-shape it is, sir," I remember him replying. "But I'm not the captain."

Taking this as my cue to enter, I grasped a rope hanging quite close to me and lifted myself off the floor of the crow's nest. Swinging high over the deck, I made my way down by way of the rigging and spars that made themselves available. Within no time at all I landed feet-first on deck. Immediately after, I heard the sound of the glass face-guard on Doppler's helmet accidentally bang shut.

I strode toward my first mate, my hands clasped behind my back, and spoke, most intimidating, to him:

"Mr. Arrow! I've checked this miserable ship from stem to stern, and, _as usual_," here, I passed him, pausing for effect, "it's… spot on. Can you get nothing wrong?"

A flattered smile broke through, subtly, on Mr. Arrow's face. I couldn't steal a glimpse of Doppler's reaction, but doubtless he, too, was pleased to know I fancied the _Legacy_. In truth, I had taken somewhat of a fancy to her; it was her crew I didn't trust.

Mr. Arrow voiced his appreciation, tipping his tri-cornered hat in my direction, during which I turned and deliberately stepped before the Doctor to take proper notice of him.

I took in what I could see of him (for his suit was huge and exposed only his head and neck) in seconds. At this distance, he seemed even more ridiculous. Little spectacles clung to the tip of his canid nose, and his eyes told of the pusillanimous personality concealed within Doppler. He was also inexperienced, that I could tell right off. He had never been on an expedition in his life.

His inexperience and subordination only made him fair game, and his gall to frolic about the docks hiring crewmen and renting ships without consulting me, a person with the experience he so drastically lacked, only motivated my behavior towards him.

"Ah…" I said, feigning fascination, after a near collision with him, "Doctor Doppler, I presume?"

He cleared his throat. "Ahm, er…yes, I…"

I'd known people similar to, as well as I'd known stereotypes regarding personalities associated with people like the Doctor, and when the stereotype uncannily matches the truth, the person can be hopelessly predictable and dull. The Doctor, I concluded, going strictly by appearance and stereotypic influences, was one to drone on, and, uninterested in allowing any such initiation, I quickly knocked on the top of Doppler's space helmet and shouted, "Hello-o! Can you hear me?"

"Yes, yes! I can hear you, stop that banging!" he waved my hand away, and then busied himself by vainly attempting to pull off his helmet. I analyzed his suit again while he tugged at that, and this time found several flaws. To tease him was far too tempting to pass up, so I grasped the rheostat protruding from the rotund middle of the suit. "If I may, Doctor," I told him, twisting the rheostat round to the left, "this works… _so_ much better when it's right way up…" when the object had been properly pivoted, I took hold of the electric cord poking out on the right side of it, grasped the Doctor's shoulders, spun him round as well, and pressed the cord's head nimbly into the electric outlet positioned on his knapsack, "…and plugged in."

Upon his release from my grip the Doctor pulled off his helmet, turned and faced me, unplugging the cord as he did so, and told me hotly, "If you don't mind—I can manage my own plugging!"

He shook the head of the cord at me and I took hold of it, as well as two of his fingers, and shook what I had of his hand. "I'm Captain Amelia," I told him genially. "Late of a few run-ins with the Procyon Armada- nasty business," I let go of his fingers, "but I won't bore you with my scars. You've met my first officer, Mr. Arrow…"

I stepped toward the man, gesturing to him. "…Sterling, tough, dependable, honest, brave and true." I raised him a fist, looking up at him, as his flattered smile broke through again. "Please, Captain…" he said humbly. I waved his words away, bantering with him, "Oh, shut up, Arrow. You know I don't mean a word of it."

Doppler's disgruntled throat cleared again, and I glanced at him as he began to speak. "'Scuse me…I hate to interrupt this…" he groped indignantly for the word, "…lovely banter, but… May I introduce to you Jim Hawkins."

The boy. The boy with the map, I had again forgotten all about him. I looked now, uninterested, at the teenage boy before me, who seemed distracted momentarily by the sails, and saw his darkened, blue eyes. His hair fell down before his face; he bore a scar on his cheek, and he wore a dark coat about him. Clearly, he was a troubled young man, and, besides my wariness of the sullen demeanor that seems to always come of troubled young men, I couldn't help also wondering what had made those eyes so dark.

I nevertheless made no outward acknowledgment of him, for the Doctor began to spout something of far more importance to me.

"Jim, you see, is _the boy who found the treasure map_-"

Without thinking two seconds of the deed, I clapped a hand round the Doctor's muzzle and clamped his jaws shut. I couldn't have brought myself to believe it had I not seen it just then before my very eyes: the Doctor was openly mentioning the map!

Just as I had feared, the massive crewman Hands, among some others who had been loading cargo nearby, turned slowly from his position facing us, grumbling, when I looked over at him. Fearful that the man had overheard the Doctor's slip-up, I waited until he was out of earshot before I relinquished the Doctor's muzzle and tapped unsentimentally at his nose with a fingernail. "I'd like a word with you in my stateroom."

Within a few minutes, everyone from Mr. Arrow to Jim Hawkins had trooped into my quarters, taking places they saw fit and to their own liking, as I closed and locked the door. I then looked at Doppler through the corners of my eyes.

"Doctor," I began as I advanced toward him, easing through my sentence condescendingly. "To muse… and blabber… about a _treasure_ map… in front of this _particular_ crew…" I was, by now, near the Doctor, and paused in my advancement, "…demonstrates a level of ineptitude… that borders on the _imbecilic_. And I mean that in a very caring way." This little addition was purely to soften the land of the already toppled Doctor, who, in turn, made an attempt to defend his loose tongue.

"_Imbecilic_, did you say? _Foolishness_ I've got, but—"

I tired of his attempt.

"May I see the map, please?"

This was, I shall own, the smartest thing I'd done since the Doctor and his ward, Mr. Hawkins, had arrived. I should have taken the liberty of seizing an opportunity long before this time to see the map. Any occasion of seeing it, however, was better than no occasion at all, and I awaited the revelation of the map with an expectant hand.

There was a pregnant silence as the Doctor and Jim conducted themselves in a series of communicative gestures and looks, which finally ended with the Doctor waving his fingers for Jim to give the map to me.

Sullenly, Jim dug deep into his coat pocket—an irresponsible place for a treasure map—and pulled forth a rather large, golden-copper sphere. Tossing it in my direction, he mumbled at me in a monotonous tone, "Here."

I raised my opposite hand into the air and caught the sphere, staring at Mr. Hawkins, and then, lifting my ears, looked, for the first time, at the map to Treasure Planet. It was a glimmering, spherical gem of a gold and copper color. Engraved upon the surface of this uniquely shaped map were odd circles, flecks of lines and geometrical shapes, entwined into an intricate design of symbols. These must have meant something once: writing, perhaps—some sort of alien hieroglyphics—or drawings of some nature or another. Everything about this odd object was intriguing, and as for its genuineness, I could tell straight away that this was a relic to be trusted.

"Hmm," I murmured, "…fascinating." Then, settling my ears back down near the sides of my head, I clicked a nail on the surface of the ball and turned away toward the weapons cabinet that stood behind me. As I crossed to the cabinet, I called for the attention of Jim Hawkins. Then I opened the cabinet doors and found a small tin treasure chest one holds items in; this I flipped open and gingerly placed the map inside. "In the future," I told Jim while I secured the map, "you will address me as Captain, or ma'am. Is that clear?"

I waited for his response. A sigh came first to my ears, which I took as a sign that he needed prompting. "Mr. Hawkins…" I repeated myself warningly.

"Yes, _ma'am_," Mr. Hawkins managed. I had, for the time being, no objection to his having to force the correct way to address me, and mumbled to Jim while locking the cabinet, "That'll do."

The key I placed into one of my pockets as I turned to face the party behind me. "This," I said, referring to the map, "must be kept under lock and key when not in use. And Doctor," I added, sliding close to his face, my tone syrupy, "with the greatest possible respect…" my eyes flashed, and, my smooth inflection gone, I urged him intensely, "zip your howling screamer."

And with that I moved to my desk situated in the middle of the room, which the Doctor happened to be standing near, as he began again to defend himself. I, however, somewhat surprised that he had enough presumption to argue the situation, sat down and interrupted him with my next concern.

"Let me make this as…_monosyllabic_… as possible," I interjected. I then paused to investigate what words to express myself with that were indeed of only one syllable. "…I…don't much care for this crew _you_ hired," I said trenchantly as I gestured to him, and added, breaking away from monosyllabic speech, "They're… how did I describe them, Arrow? I said something rather good this morning before coffee…"

Mr. Arrow, who was standing beside me behind my desk, recited what I'd told him earlier that morning, while taking some much needed coffee in my stateroom: that the crew was a 'ludicrous parcel of driveling galoots'.

I beamed at Doppler, contrasting the scowl he wore, and commented leisurely, "There you go: poetry."

"Now, see here!" the Doctor objected. Ready, I believe, to really have it out with me this time, he slammed his hands upon my desk, which I deplored with a lifted eyebrow. Recognizing his confrontational demeanor, I stood quickly and slid near his face again, appeasing, and concluded my discourse by interrupting him for the last time, "Doctor, I'd love to chat… tea, cake, the _whole_ shebang, but... I have a ship to launch," I ran a fingernail up the metal collar of his space suit, "and you've got your outfit to buff up."

Removing myself from his face, I placed my hands firmly behind me and addressed Mr. Arrow. "Please escort these two neophytes," I threw Doppler a tired glance, "down to the galley straight away; young Hawkins will be working for our cook, Mr. Silver."

Jim had been fiddling with a piece of equipment during the Doctor's and my discussion, but upon my decree looked up sharply and spat, "What? The cook?"

Mr. Arrow made his way to the door and opened it. "Follow me, gentlemen," he said with a short bow. Both slowly made their exits, and shortly I had been left alone, standing behind my desk with my hands clasped behind me, and ready at all costs to get on with the voyage.


	4. The Voyage is at Last Begun

**Chapter 4**: The Voyage is At Last Begun

The _RLS_ _Legacy_ made her launch into space at nine o'clock a.m. After a brief rally of the men for roll call, a last count of the provisions, and a new inspection of the well-oiled helm, I bade the lookout, Mr. Onus, to please ring the bell to signify we were ready to cast off.

Mr. Arrow escorted an intrigued Doctor Doppler (but no Jim, who I assumed had stayed in the galley with Silver) from below deck, and took his usual place beside me on the bridge. Mr. Arrow then shouted to the hands to prepare themselves for the launch, and when Doppler, still in his suit, clomped up the gangway to the port flying bridge, I leaned confidentially toward Arrow. "Is it a good idea that the Doctor be on the bridge when we launch?" I inquired quietly.

Mr. Arrow leaned toward me and murmured in reply, "I thought he might like to observe the launch, Captain. What better place than on the bridge?"

"I don't think he has any idea of what he's doing."

"If he falls into trouble, what better person to pull him out than yourself?" Mr. Arrow said, smiling as he straightened up. I sighed, annoyed but smiling, watching him, and opened my mouth to say something else when Turnbuckle, the helmsman, hurried up the gangway onto the bridge and grabbed the helm. "We're all ready, Cap'm," he informed me. "On your command, ma'am, we'll head out."

"Thank you, Turnbuckle," I said, without a glance his way for I had taken notice that Doppler was fumbling in his metal space boots down the gangway toward the bridge once again. I gritted my teeth subtly, part of me hoping he wouldn't take a spill, another part of me thinking how amusing it would be if he did. But despite what I hoped he did or did not do, he managed his way down without a scratch, and was in a moment's notice beside the helm and inspecting the view below. I turned to Mr. Arrow.

"Well, my friend," I said with a short exhalation, "Are we ready to raise this creaking tub?"

Mr. Arrow bowed his head. "My pleasure, Captain."

And so, with my nod of consent, he turned to the crew on deck and shouted for them all to find their stations.

The deck below bustled with disorderly work in immediate response. Meltdown waded his way through the crowd to find his place in the engine room, and the riggers scuttled like ants atop the masts to the sails. Some of the ropers pulled back at the lines of the sails, while others prepared to release the astral anchor. Slowly but surely, the sails opened to reveal their shell-shaped bellies, billowing little by little as the fibers caught the sun, weaving it into threads as the energy cascaded through the masts and was directed to the engine room, where Meltdown was awaiting enough accumulation to launch us.

Among the busy crewmen on deck, I caught sight of Jim Hawkins, who was leaning far over the bulwarks in awe as the _RLS Legacy_ ascended high into the air.

There was a slight tremor that fluttered through the hull of the ship's entirety as the Cresentia's gravity lost hold of us, and in few seconds practically everyone was levitating three or four feet off the ship. The Doctor, to my surprise, lifted up like a balloon caught in an updraft. So, (to put it as Mr. Arrow had), to pull him out of trouble, I directed my command to the gravity specialist Snuff, (who had quickly assured us when Mr. Arrow and I met him that he could understand English) and instructed him to engage the ship's artificial gravity. His assurance proved to be the truth, for he saluted me noisily, threw the correct lever, and we all fell to our feet back on the ship's floor. The Doctor took the spill he had so triumphantly avoided on his way down from the port flying bridge, but I took no amusement in it, and told the helmsman, "South by southwest, Mr. Turnbuckle, heading 2-1-0-0."

"Aye, Cap'm," he responded professionally. "2-1-0-0."

The ship swung starboard, her bow tipped a few feet higher than her stern, facing the Etherium. I raised my chin, ready to cast off, and commanded, "Full speed, Mr. Arrow, if you please."

Mr. Arrow turned to the communication tube that enabled us to speak with Mr. Meltdown below deck, and ordered, "Take her away!"

There was a hum of engines as they readied themselves to launch. The Doctor, who had been fumbling for his feet since his sprawl across the bridge, finally retrieved his footing, and as he dusted his ridiculous suit off, I warned him, knowing he wouldn't take it truly to heart, "Brace yourself, Doctor."

He made no reply to me. I, for one, took my advice, and as the engines blasted back a powerful surge of solar energy, the _RLS Legacy_ rocketed into the Etherium, tossing the Doctor nimbly off his feet and rifling him backwards. The inertia carried him fully five feet off the ground before he collided heavily against the mizzenmast, sending him again sprawling, where he, since the launch had begun, lay quite without bother for some time.

The _RLS Legacy _flew as smoothly as a space captain could possibly think to ask for. She was a sturdy little schooner, with a white hull and a gentle temperament, complete with three masts and a peppery engine. There was a sort of cubby within the bulwarks on the bridge where one could view the control panel, which I immediately checked to see that everything was in proper order. Everything proved just so, to my satisfaction, and I looked up again to see several small pods of Orci Galactici, which are leviathan-like creatures that inhabit the colder parts of the Etherium. Their pods, angled into a 'V' formation common to other migratory creatures such as geese, surrounded our ship soon enough, and seemingly everyone slowed in their work to watch as several of them flew above and beside the RLS Legacy. I frankly had no objection to that; they are, indeed, majestic creatures, and no matter how many times one has seen them before, one really never tires of them.

However, traveling too close to a pod can be hazardous to both the ship and the Orcus, were a collision to occur, and I quietly bade Turnbuckle to be alert in his work. When I straightened up I noticed, to my slight interest, Doppler had made it back on his feet and up to the starboard flying bridge, and I rather wondered how I had failed to hear him clank up the steps. Nevertheless, I realized he was gazing in awe over the side at an Orcus drifting almost directly below the flying bridge. The Doctor was intrigued, declaring something I couldn't quite understand, for his back was turned to me, and he straightened to his full height and hit a button of some sort on the chest of his suit. He must have taken the liberty of plugging the rheostat in again after he had left me, for a camera jutted out of his suit at the touch of the button. "Smile!" I heard the Doctor shout cheerily as he leaned forward to snap a shot of the passing creature.

Unfortunately for the Doctor, he was right in the range of a good spatter from the Orcus's blowhole, should any be in the offing. I knew from my own observations that such a discharge was unpredictable, and so I raised a cautioning finger for the Doctor, who couldn't see it anyway, and called to him from the bridge, "Uh, Doctor, I'd steer clear of that—"

But a rush of intergalactic mucus spewed up from the Orcus Galacticus, rushing upon and then raining down onto him, interrupting me and quickly soaking the whole of Doctor Doppler.

Amusing though it was, I managed to stifle my chuckle a little, letting my finger drop. And then there was a rumbling voice calling, and my features were wiped clean.

The grand old cyborg Silver, out on deck for no real reason, was tipping his cloth hat in my direction as soon as I placed my eyes upon him.

"Ah… 'Tis a grand day for sailin', cap'm!" The man informed me jubilantly. I made no effort to respond, and he pointed a swift, metallic index finger in my direction, continuing spiffily, "and look at ya'! You're as trim and as bonny as a sloop with new sails and a fresh coat a' paint." Having complimented me thus far, he executed a sweeping bow, withdrawing his hat from the top of his head to enhance the flattery.

I could perceive the ingratiation instantly, and on a better day with a better crew I think there may have been a better chance that I'd have taken it, but, lacking the two, I was not at all interested in accepting Silver's flattery. Shortly I stated, "You can keep that kind of flimflammery for your spaceport floozies, Silver," at which the cyborg's smiling cheeks fell. As if with the intention of increasing my dislike for the cook, a small, pink-colored gel creature (known widely as a Morph) drifted forth and, quite remarkably, took a form uncannily resembling me. The creature then commenced to mimic my statement in a squeaky voice three times before Silver was able to conceal it within his hat. Quickly he peered up at me and remarked piteously, "You cut me to the _quid_, Cap'm… I speaks nothin' but me heart at all times."

"Nothin'butmeheart…" I heard the morph echo from his hat.

I rolled my eyes, noting during the procedure that not only was my simpleton cook disregarding his duties, so was his new cabin boy, who hung idly from the shrouds in a juvenile bout of happy preoccupation.

"And, um… by the way," I sneered, "Isn't that _your_ cabin boy aimlessly footling about in those shrouds?"

Silver again sagged in dismay, swiveled his head about to look at the boy, and then turned back to me. "Ah… a momentary aberration, Cap'm! Soon t' be addressed. Jimbo-o!"

In spite of myself I smiled at the nickname given to the boy as Silver marched off to tend to his responsibility, and, taking in a deep breath, I turned from the bridge with the destination of my stateroom in mind.


	5. The Doctor's Map

**Author's Note:** Thank you to all of those who have reviewed! It is very much appreciated—I'm glad you like this so far.

To Jackie99: Thank you for reviewing! I'm glad it reads like a classic novel—I take that as a sign that you're enjoying it. Keep reading :)

To Homeric-Simile: lol Don't worry, presenting new scenes is what I'd hoped to do. Of course, I won't be able to escape the TP plot itself, but there are a lot of parts where the Captain isn't in the scene, and I've always felt that exploring those absent scenes, and not just writing the movie again with some first-person narration, is what any re-write for a supporting character is all about. I hope you keep reading!

To CrazzyGurl: I _luv_ that you luv it! rofl

To marbles :) I know! There needs to be some A/D fluff as soon as possible! lol Of course I plan to put some in—keep visiting and you'll see it soon enough.

To Princess Tiger Lili: Oh! Heh—you know, you're right. I never even thought of it when I wrote it, but it's true: Doppler is _introduced_ to Silver during that first scene Silver is presented. But, for an answer to your question, perhaps Doppler hired Silver and the crew in this story through letters and telegrams and no personal communication, like he did when he hired Amelia. :)

All right; here's Chapter Five!

**Chapter 5**: The Doctor's Map

Upon entering my quarters I made a point of locking the door behind me. As doggedly and as obediently as they had performed their duties, there was something still that told me some of the men on this cruise were lacking in scruples. With the door locked, I felt safe to take the key to the weapons cabinet from my pocket.

With a click the two doors were sufficiently unlocked and opened, and from the interior I took the tin chest that concealed the map. Taking the sphere back into my hand, I deposited the chest into the cabinet and once more analyzed the copper ball for a few moments as I made my way to the chair behind my desk. The designs were, as I have said, intricate and small, detailed, and complex. I have never seen anything so mysterious in all my encounters on any voyage, and as I sat down with the map resting within both my palms, my eyes traced as many of the shapes as I could make them, taking in every detail, until at last I had to look away; the design was complicated and rather confusing.

Despite my studies I could not make any sense out of the shapes on the spherical map. What I did find, however, was that the map was segmented into about eighteen pieces, and that if I ran my fingers along the smooth copper I could perceive tangibly raised circles in the confusing design, which I considered might serve as buttons. I allowed myself a try at one of them and pressed; there was a whirr from inside, which encouraged me, and for perhaps five to ten minutes I occupied myself with pressing the buttons I found hiding about the entire surface. There were clicking sounds and hums that answered from within, but nothing else seemed to happen no matter what button I pushed and in what order I did so. Therefore I stopped and inspected it again.

I must have sat in my room for fifteen or twenty minutes studying that map and trying to get it to respond the way I wanted it to and open for me, but I attempted everything I could think of with little or no response.

Mr. Arrow came in after awhile to report that a minor confrontation had occurred on deck between Jim Hawkins and a spider-humanoid roper called Scroop that could have turned into a riot. He assured me that he had assuaged them all, and that Silver had come to the aid of his cabin boy, but I took little interest, still confounded by the map of which Doppler claimed had been opened before. When Arrow wrapped up his report, I bade him send for the Doctor.

Doppler had changed out of his suit. I didn't blame him; his suit had at last taken a nasty soaking and was probably worse for the ware. His knock was timid when he rapped upon my stateroom door, he was unsure the entire few minutes it took for me to unlock the door to let him come in, and when at last he had drawn up a chair at the opposite side of my desk to sit down facing me, he was cleaning his glasses rigorously, as if simply to have something to concentrate his eyes on. But when I revealed the map to him he seemed to feel more at ease.

"The map… W-why do you have that out? I was under the impression that we couldn't take it out and flaunt itUnless, of course, that only applied to…to me."

"Don't be ridiculous, Doctor, that command applies to everyone in charge of this trinket, not just you… The reason it is now being, as you call it, 'flaunted' is that I mean to inquire you upon its activation. Is there a specific button one presses, or a chronological order of steps…?"

I allowed the Doctor's mind to weave back to the moment the map was first opened, and it took him a few minutes before his glance fell tentatively back upon me. His hand twitched forward in suggestion, and I placed the copper ball into his palm, and, somewhat surprisingly, he too underwent each step I took in inspecting and experimenting with the map. After two or three minutes he handed it back.

"I…" he said slowly, "…don't actually know… how to open it. You see, Jim was the one who activated it the night we obtained it… If I may, I would say without much hesitation that he is the _only_ one on this ship that knows how to use it."

This was a shock to me. "But surely you, a man of such scholarly…" I considered the best term, "…_apotheosis_… can achieve something a teenage _boy_ can?"

The Doctor scratched his nose with his thumb. "Ahm… I… I-I-I…No," and he sank into his chair. I lifted my eyebrows, unimpressed. "Very well, then, Doctor…" I said, rather derisively, and brought the map close to my face to inspect it again. The Doctor looked cautiously about.

"I…I enjoyed viewing the launch," he offered, almost hopefully. "Very, er… fascinating view, that view—of the _launch_, I mean—fascinating view. Thank you for… for letting me view it from the bridge. Very good… well, view," he managed to produce, coughing into his fist. I looked up at him silently from over the map. Allowing a subtle smile to pull at the right corner of my lips, I placed the map gingerly into my left hand and said genially, "Well, you're quite welcome, Doctor. And if I may be so bold, I've a thesaurus in here somewhere that you may _view_ if you like. Wouldn't want to seem the fool by using a word more than six times in four consecutive sentences."

My smile grew just slightly; the Doctor cleared his throat again.

"All right," I continued forbearingly, "if I can't get into this map, I may still be able to get something out of it. Until, of course, it can be arranged that Mr. Hawkins come and open it for us. Tell me, Doctor… what did it look like when it was opened?"

The Doctor seemed fascinated by an individual wooden plank in the floor. He scratched his nose once more and glanced up.

"It was… incredible… A real surprise," the Doctor answered quietly. He looked at me, and took the map gingerly from my hand. He held it in both of his palms like an eggshell, and gestured around it. "An emerald grid…" he said, he eyes taking on a hint of excitement, "just… illuminated from the interior. It had split in… into segments, I think perhaps twelve—"

"Eighteen," I informed him. He looked up at me. I pointed a finger at the map and remarked, "Look there. The map is made up of about eighteen segments."

He inspected the sphere. "Eighteen," he confirmed. "…It had split into eighteen segments… and emitted a grid that acts like the longitude and latitude lines on a plain map. But-but… but it wasn't just a map, it was a hologram."

The Doctor rose from his chair, taking the map with him, and gestured about him tentatively. "Hologram planets. Perfect little hologram planets were formed inside the… the dome; the grid had taken the shape of a dome, and the small hologram planets were inside. And then, with a tap on the planet Montressor—whoosh—everything begins to move! The planets were arranged exactly… exactly accurate, corresponding perfectly to size and distance from one another. Here… right here was the Megallenic Cloud."

I raised one eyebrow and smiled. "Really? The Megallenic Cloud?"

"Yes, yes," the Doctor replied, engrossed, shuffling to the right. "And here, perfectly located, was the Coral Galaxy. Just… passing by…"

I was by this point quite engaged. "The Coral Galaxy," I repeated, rising from my seat. "That's fascinating."

The Doctor smiled, glanced at me, and fixed his glasses. He let his hand hover in front of him, indicating the landmark's location in his invisible hologram.

"Yes, and then the Cygnus Cross drifted in. Right here."

I analyzed the positioning of his hand.

"No… it must have been here," I commented.

"There?"

"Of course," I remarked. "If you say the Megallenic Cloud was here, then the Cygnus Cross must have been located to the—"

"Yes! That's right. It was there, I remember. And then the Karian Abyss came in through here," and the Doctor made a sweeping gesture to the left of him.

"The Karian Abyss as well?" I echoed. "That's astounding."

"I agree, considering that one hundred years ago, during the time Flint was terrorizing the Etherium, no one commonly traveled so far… But that's not all, we have to travel a distance beyond that point," the Doctor replied. "Whoever designed this map was a spacer quite unique to anyone else traveling at that time."

I was impressed by the Doctor's knowledge of the Etherium's history. I placed my hands behind my back and agreed. "Anything else?" I inquired.

"Yes, one more thing… the most important thing…" the Doctor stepped back, turning to the left wall of my stateroom. "It came after the Karian Abyss… the biggest hologram yet… as big and as fascinating as nothing I've ever encountered before: _Treasure Planet_!"

Doppler swept his hand across the air, discreetly tracing the shape and placement of the legendary planet, and, while facing the left wall of my stateroom and letting my imagination dictate the image of the hologram, I daresay I could nearly see it.


	6. The Voyage

**Chapter 6**: The Voyage

The first few weeks of the voyage went relatively smoothly. The crew did its best and eventually found a place for themselves in the more tolerant realms of my perception. My basic opinion of their working efforts changed from pessimism to general optimism: continuous blunders to clumsy persistence. However, my distrust toward them evaporated sooner, for I developed the assumption that they were only crewmen with meager work ethics and tendencies to eves-drop, and not all-out evil mutineers plotting for blood. There has never been a mutinous crew that didn't show signs of it before, and these men were not demonstrating signs; basically all they seemed to prove to be were kittens with bad habits.

The Doctor had taken up residence in the guest's quarters two rooms below mine, and, every once in a while, moved into my company. He could eventually spend time lapsing into almost half an hour with me, discussing topics regarding the voyage and astronomical jargon, always intending to be of help to me, but usually making himself a bit of a spectacle. He proved to be useful in some cases; for instance, he knew an impeccable amount of information concerning astronomical concepts. He could also determine how far we were from our destination by judging what he could remember from the map, neither one of us having taken the liberty of consulting Jim Hawkins about opening it. We faired well despite the unopened map, although I did have a subdued desire to see it activated. The Doctor was, in some aspects, an interesting man to have around, albeit a rather risible one as well. It always took a bit of persuasion before he gained confidence in himself, and to this day I do not believe I saw the whole of his self-confidence until after the voyage was done.

Also, Jim Hawkins seemed to undergo a few subtle changes. As the days progressed, he did not seem to be so sullen, and I noted a few weeks after the voyage began that his eyes had gained a bit of light and the dark jacket he usually wore had been discarded. I had only to assume the cook Silver was behind this subtle transformation, he having sent the boy straight to work and never seeming to let up. One morning a few weeks into the voyage I found both Silver and Mr. Hawkins dangling from the bulwarks of the port stern. They were sitting on a plank of wood hanging from two pieces of rope fastened to the sides of the ship to form a manufactured swing. When I peered over the bulwarks to investigate the two bits of rope thrown over the side, I saw Silver and Jim Hawkins below, Silver overseeing and Mr. Hawkins prying barnacles off the hull. I had meant to have Hands handle that vocation later at noon, and I shouted down an inquiry as to why Jim was working on it instead.

"The lad didn't come back, ma'am, after deliverin' your latte this mornin', an' now he's payin' for it," Silver called back. I laughed, and when Mr. Hawkins glanced up at me, I said, "All right, then, Mr. Silver. If the punishment fits the crime..."

"I figure it does, Cap'm."

"Then by all means continue, Mr. Hawkins."

Later, when I informed the Doctor of Jim's encounter with the barnacles, expecting his amusement as a result, I instead received moreover his heartfelt approval. "Jim needs the discipline," the Doctor explained concisely, and that's all he told me regarding the matter.

Beyond the mornings at seven o'clock when my latte was delivered, I saw little of Jim Hawkins. The first few weeks he would say nothing to me at all, except a murmured 'Good morning, ma'am' upon entrance. It grew to be wildly amusing to see what Silver was having him do: Jim often wore a white apron hanging from his neck, and his face or clothes (despite the apron) were usually splashed with traces of flour or other such evidence that he had been helping prepare breakfast. And he would always be in a constant state of sullen detachment, rarely saying anything at all while he placed the latte upon my desk. He usually then would flee, whereupon I occasionally shouted teasingly after him not to run and hide, although the hull could use a little scraping.

There was a small expanse of time where I was obliged to discuss with Silver the random mornings of which I would find a candy eyeball floating round in my latte, watching me intently as I went about my business at my desk. The first time this occurred, I will own that it startled me to a certain degree; after the first or second, however, it was no longer such a surprise. It was slightly degrading to be had by practical jokes in my own stateroom, but I never did bring it up with Silver, for the game was put to rest a few weeks after it started.

I spent many an afternoon up on the bridge. I would often see the Doctor out on deck during the afternoons, or appear there in the evenings. A small telescope through which he would gaze interestedly at the stars usually accompanied him. After the first or second week, I noticed he would take notice of me, and on the first night during the third week he addressed me, and then continued to address me in the evenings following that—"How are you, Captain" and "Lovely weather we're having"—and other such casual conversational prattle.

One night he actually ascended to the bridge to speak with me. He made his way up the gangway, after confirming to himself that I was doing nothing particularly important there, and said with a tone balancing both a polite and casual approach as best it could, "How are you, Captain?"

I enjoyed amusing myself by bantering and teasing the bashful Doctor for the rest of the ten or twenty minutes he was too introverted to be a good conversationalist, during which time he wriggled like an eel in his embarrassment, attempted his part in the conversation with his 'lovely weather we're having' observation, until he soon excused himself to leave. However, after a few more nights passed and his confidence at last came round, he could board the bridge and greet me without seeming as inhibited.

Then some few weeks later I found him on the bridge before I'd reached it late one evening. I smiled wryly and called mockingly up to him as I approached, "How are you, Doctor? Lovely weather we're having!"

The Doctor took his telescope from his eye and said spuriously, but good-naturedly, "I agree. Good evening to you, as well, Captain!"

I stopped to look up at him, and told him lightly, "You look just like a fledgling astronomer, Doctor, what with your telescope in hand and no one to acknowledge your work."

He smiled. "Rather… _presumptuous_ of you to tell me my work is unacknowledged."

"Rather _presumptuous_ of you to take to the bridge before me. And it was not particularly brazen of me, my good Doctor Doppler... If you consider it, fledglings are much more hard-working, persevering, and overall more admirable compared to the lazy old experts who've done it all and have little else to aspire for."

The Doctor looked at me. "Do you mean to tell me— in the most roundabout way possible— that you think me admirable?"

I lifted my eyebrows and smiled ambiguously at him. "Let me assure you, Doctor, I—"

However, I could not complete my sentence, for, quite unexpectedly, a blow to the _RLS_ _Legacy's_ starboard hull sent her yawing at a twenty-five degree slant off course to the left. The impaction sent me, the hands, and I believe the Doctor sprawling our lengths across the deck within seconds. I regained my feet as quickly as I could, stupefied, as the Doctor's head came up again over the railing of the bridge, putting forth his own exclamation of surprise as he did so. He brought forth the telescope he'd kept safe under his arm and peered out at the Etherium in a sort of a flurry, and for a brief lapse of time there was a lull of silence. It was then that I heard a sharp, popping sound a far distance off. Unnerved, I turned quickly around and looked over the bulwarks of the ship, and witnessed a red and blue explosion to the west; a danger I had never before come up against.

"The star Pellucid…" I heard the Doctor call. "It's gone… _supernova_!"


	7. Two Deaths

**Chapter 7**: Two Deaths

In an instant I was up the gangway to the bridge, shouting the very first thought that entered my mind:

"Evasive actions, Mr. Turnbuckle!"

I barely felt the ship swerve away as the helmsman followed orders swiftly, and was only barely aware of Mr. Arrow's voice shouting something about lifelines. I was immediately atop the bridge, gaining a place beside the Doctor, who was watching the star. I looked hurriedly at the control panel near the helm for damage. None yet.

The fiery tidal wave of the explosion, carrying with it fragments of blazing matter, soon gave chase to us. The wave overtook us in no time, blasting the Legacy with its excruciating heat, and ripping through her sails with its fire. I again glanced at the controls. Damage began to increase with rapidity: thrust was lost in the Main topgallant and the Fore topgallant sails as the blazing rock tore through them once, then again. "Mr. Arrow!" I shouted over the quick crescendo of the roar of the star.

Damage to the Mizzen staysail, once. Again.

"Secure those sails!"

Mr. Arrow shouted at the hands. The roaring star was deafening in its death, and its heat was nearly unbearable, despite the Legacy's protective shield. I couldn't understand it. Supernova stars weren't usually so powerful so soon after destruction.

But I had little time to ponder. I eventually felt dangerously vulnerable; the solar winds were fierce, laced with flames, and it was taking all of me to keep my footing. A lifeline would have secured me much better, had I taken the time to find one. Also, it occurred to me that the Doctor was not wearing his, either. I made to turn and shout at him, but I noticed before I could do so that the control panel read that we lost more than ten percent thrusting capacity from the Foresail. Whirling back to face the controls, I peered around to see Pigors and Greedy leap from the shrouds in a narrow escape from collision with a large mass of rock, which carried on it almost the entire Foresail. "Blast!" I roared, and called through the communicator to the mechanic below, "Mr. Meltdown! Report to the bridge—_immediately_!"

Meltdown sprouted up from below deck and I sent him to controls at the cannon; he would destroy any rock that may come hurtling toward the ship. It worked for a time; thrusting capacity decreased less and less as the sails were taken in by the hands; damage to the hull, for the time simple dents and minor collisions, were controlled as best we could with Meltdown at the cannon. However, we were not prepared for what was yet to come.

From somewhere deep within the belly of the star a massive wave erupted, allowing the escape of an enormous molten rock, perhaps ten times the size of the _Legacy_, which came careening toward us faster than we could make our retreat. I heard the helmsman begin to shout frantically, with extravagant facial contortions to emphasize his panic, that the thing was coming on too quickly, and adding, a little dramatically, that we were all going to die. I couldn't help wondering how close to the truth his conclusion was.

On deck, I could see the men scatter and point, screaming and crying in their uncontrollable panic. I could hear Onus shout from the crows' nest to the crew that they were facing their last hour; they must all say their prayers.

Agitated, I wiped my hair from my face and eyes, preparing to shout another desperate order to Mr. Arrow, when the _Legacy_ reared to the right and the giant boulder paused before us. There was a hideous sound that rose up from the collapsed star that sounded almost as though a last sigh. Then, immediately after, the star began to inhale.

And we began to move as though in reverse: the boulder, the fire, the wind, and the _R.L.S Legacy_ tipped in the opposite direction and went flying back toward the star. There was a wretched moment in which the hands paused and thought themselves saved; then Onus, high overhead, shouted in awe, his voice getting pulled into the perishing star's opening jaws:

"Captain…! The star!"

I closed my mouth tightly as the Doctor rushed to the railing of the bridge beside me and murmured, his voice rising for every word he uttered, "It's… devolving into a… a _black hole_!"

The helmsman Turnbuckle began to struggle for his life at the helm against the star's gravitational pull. I could feel my hair whip about and pursue the opposite direction; the wind had changed its course.

The ship fell uncontrollably toward the gaping chasm that had taken form before us. I searched my mind for the solution to this problem. I felt there had to be something. I sensed more than I saw Mr. Arrow hesitating frantically below me. It was as if the entire crew had stopped breathing.

And then Turnbuckle was shouting. The wind and the roar and the black hole drowned his voice and made it seem very far away, but I perceived in his inflection sheer panic—and then the last two words of his sentence rattled my ears: "_Pulled_ _in_!"

With that he went flying, the helm and the gravitational pull having overpowered him. He skidded across the bridge floor and took a terrific blow to the head that knocked him cold. Involuntarily I ran for the helm and gripped it, turning it with all my strength, determined to escape the gaping black mouth that was summoning us into it.

The raging flames that were now churning within the throat of the hole bubbled over and spread with blinding rapidity, bringing upon the _Legacy_ a blow so powerful it threw us a good fifty miles away from the jaws. The distance was quickly recovered. However, it knocked the _Legacy's_ crew off their feet, and it took all of me to keep my balance. The Doctor was knocked off balance and he slid across the floor, followed by the lifeless body of Turnbuckle, and landed heavily against the control panel, gripping the edges of its platform and staring blindly at the display.

We were overcome by several excruciating waves, one after the other, successively, each throwing us a good fifty to seventy miles away, only to be pulled nearer to the black hole again. After the third or fourth blow of heat, I succumbed to my frustration and shouted loudly, "_Blast_ these waves! They're so _deuc_edly erratic!"

"No, Captain!" I heard the Doctor shout in reply. I turned to look at him, baffled. He continued hurriedly, and I noticed he had been examining the control panel, "They're not erratic at all! There'll be one more in precisely forty-seven-point-two seconds… followed by the biggest magilla of them all!"

My initial conclusion was that the expedition to Treasure Planet would end here, suddenly, in a little over forty-seven-point-two seconds. The wave, and then the magilla; we would all be too exposed to the heat to survive it, and even if we did, we were much too close now to the Event Horizon to remain alive. However, it occurred to me like a blow to the head that with black hole magillas, so too came solar light, which meant a surge of power. If only we could harness the light, we might be able to escape. The magilla's solar energy would provide more than enough power to rocket us out of there. It was a terrible gamble of every life aboard the _Legacy_; nevertheless, I found myself grinning.

"Of course! _Brilliant_, Doctor! We'll _ride_ that last magilla out of here!"

"All sails secured, Captain!" Mr. Arrow shouted, his rocklike fingers pressed against his ebony tri-cornered hat in an urgent salute. I leaned over the helm and called loudly to my friend, "Good man! Now—release them immediately!"

Mr. Arrow paused, stunned, I believe, with his hand lingering at the tip of his hat. Then, gathering himself up, he shouted, "Aye, Captain!" and turned to command the hands.

I relaxed and tensed my grip around the helm, concentrating the majority of my attention on keeping the _Legacy_ fighting to stay away from the jaws. I could hear the heat of the expiring star hiss and crack. "Damage to the Foresail, Captain!" I heard the Doctor shout over the roar.

The sails began to flare open and receive the damage I had initially been so bent on preventing. I couldn't help it now. We needed all the power we could consume.

Through my moving hair I perceived Jim Hawkins taking to the shrouds in preparation to comply my order. I called out to him loudly, over the wind and the hissing, and he turned round in the direction of my voice. I yelled at him, "Make sure all lifelines are secured good and tight!"

Jim saluted me as he dropped from the shrouds and called some sort of affirmation that I didn't catch. I grasped the helm as tightly as possible, and then, without provocation, the whole of me wished that the Doctor was not on the bridge with me.

"_Blast_ it, Doctor!" I roared at him. "You _don't_ have your lifeline on!"

"Neither do you, I regret!" he called back. "Damage to the Main topsail!"

I said nothing.

Jim circumnavigated the mainmast as hurriedly as I had hoped, tightening each lifeline knot as fast as he could. He called to me that all lifelines had been secured, and in the next instant a powerful blow to the _Legacy's_ frame sent us hurtling the other way, prying me off my feet and from the helm. It was as though the mizzenmast had rammed into me, and not I into it, but nevertheless I found myself on my knees before the mast, having covered the full five or six feet between it and the helm without ever touching the floor. I could hear the Doctor cry out in a panic, and I struggled rapidly to my feet, calling back to him that I was fine, although as I regained my footing, I felt intuitively that something had changed.

I threw my weight against the helm as I retrieved it into my grasp, a dull aching in my back causing me to grit my teeth. The Doctor watched me with wide eyes, and when I glanced at him, he gestured crazily at the control panel. "The magillaWe've only got seventeen seconds!"

I flexed my grip upon the helm, the only outward sign of my agitation that I allowed myself. The men were scurrying from their perches on the spars high above, and I saw through the din that Silver caught sight of Jim Hawkins on deck and collected him. The hands made their way down and crowded each other in tight spaces, like ants trying to avoid a mounting flame.

"Captain!" I heard the Doctor's voice call behind the roaring of the chasm. "The last wave_here it comes_!"

"Hold on to your _lifelines_, gents!" I called hoarsely to the crew, supplying an unbearably grim humor as I spoke. "It's gonna be a bumpy ride!"

At which point the _Legacy_ lost her battle against the pull of the dying star and toppled, twisting us at a very steep angle, her starboard side tipping low into the jaws of the black hole. As we passed the Event Horizon, I threw the helm to the left, swinging the _Legacy's_ bow in the same direction, to ensure that just in case this worked, we would shoot from the black hole nose first. The ridge of the hole passed us as we at first fell relatively slowly into the gaping mouth; then we were rifled down, deep within the throat of the star, where, for a time, my perception faded until it was almost fully erased. I could neither see nor feel anything, and was sickeningly unaware of whether we were still falling or had stopped dead in our descent.

I don't know how long we stayed there. I had to struggle vainly to perceive anything at all, for I could not even tell whether or not I was still holding the helm, much less how much time had elapsed. For all that I know we might have been falling for days.

And then I could hear the fire ripping towards us, bellowing and rippling like a muffled engine, and we were hit brutally from underneath, blasting us from the throat and the jaws and the darkness of the dead star. The light was blinding, searing through the masts and the hull and the shrouds, trapped by the sails and converted to energy. We flew from the black hole with our sails alight, and in an instant had reached a cool, untouched sky.

I grew slowly aware of the crew gathered below the bridge, shouting, crying, singing, clapping, and celebrating. I inhaled somewhat shakily, and was again in control of myself. The crew rejoiced and I smiled, leaving the helm to find and regain our lost course. As I crossed the bridge, I passed the Doctor as he crawled from an entanglement within some coiled line, and as I found my sextant, he began to babble enthusiastically.

"Captain!" he gasped, "That was… oh my goodnessthat was absolutely…that was the most…"

I peered through my sextant. "Oh, tish-tosh," I abolished his chance to give me his scattered compliment. Then, feeling as though I owed my gratitude to the Doctor, I opened my mouth, nonchalantly putting away the instrument I was using, and informed him with a glance, "Actually, Doctor, your astronomical advice was most helpful."

And with that I left him, hearing but deciding to ignore his fumbled thanks as he began to sputter.

I made my way down the gangway to the deck while the crew's cheering and singing slowly subsided. I glanced up and noticed Jim Hawkins and Silver standing together a ways away to my left, and I remembered suddenly of Jim's cool-headed performance with the lifelines. Descending a step or two more, I began casually to speak, "Well, I must…" I paused, and cast my eyes not to the boy, but to Silver, who stood in a kind of slouch beside Mr. Hawkins, looking expectantly at me, "…_congratulate_ you, Mr. Silver. It seems your cabin boy," and I glanced at Jim, "did a bang-up job with those lifelines."

This evoked from Silver a smug grunt of a chuckle, and he threw his open palm gently across his cabin boy's face; a sign of praise, I assumed. Jim responded to this with a friendly shove, and they occupied themselves with the unsaid congratulations back and forth, and I turned to the deck again, feeling a head-count was in order.

"All hands accounted for, Mr. Arrow?"

There was a strange silence that answered.

I waited nevertheless for his response. The pause lingered, and an eerie, cold feeling began to slip slowly along my limbs and nape. The quiet seemed to stretch on for eternity before I repeated, a little softer, "…Mr. Arrow?"

The rustling of a spider's steps stirred the crew apart. Scroop stood in front of the gangway, an ebony tri-cornered hat in one of his pincers.

"I'm afraid… Mr. Arrow has been lost."

Delicately the hat moved into my hands.

"His lifeline was not secured."

Jim Hawkins's blue, bright eyes shot up to meet mine and I realized I was looking at him.

"No…" he murmured quietly. "I checked them all."

There was a quiet stir as Jim pushed through the jumbled crewmen, reaching the base of the foremast and the pegs where the lines were tied. There was a rope missing. He stammered.

"I… I did… I checked them all… They were secure."

He turned around and insisted.

"I swear."

My eyes narrowed. I couldn't answer him.

There was an immediate, sharp tightening in my throat; a terrible throbbing that amassed itself into an insurmountable knot; and I felt as though it might strangle me. I found myself at a loss, and I gripped the rim of my friend's hat that still lingered in my hands as if to keep myself from falling. My mind wavered incomprehensively, and the cold that crawled along my skin grew icy.

I lifted my face to the crew, who stood in gloomy expectancy before the gangway. There was a silence during which I engaged in a small war inside myself. I then took a breath.

"…Mr. Arrow was… a…" I paused to clear my throat, in a weak attempt to evict the painful knot still tightening within it.

"…Fine spacer… Finer than most of us… could ever hope to be."

I dropped my arms to my side, still clinging to his hat in my right hand, struggling to keep my voice steady. The delivery of my words felt useless, dispassionate and hollow, despite the profound sincerity from which they stemmed. The insufferable feeling that there was nothing I could do or say or think that did any justice to my friend at all was suddenly my most dominant thought.

"But he knew the risks, as do we all. Resume your posts… We carry on."

My conclusion was hardened, thick and artificial in its brevity, and I choked on the sound of it, the implications of it. _'We carry on'_. How? The whole of it left a synthetic taste in my mouth.

The Doctor was there on the bridge as I directed myself to my chambers. He spoke low to me, gently. I made no effort to respond to his sympathies, and retired to my stateroom, leaving him alone upon the bridge.


	8. The Effects of Mr Arrow's Death

**Chapter 8**: The Effects of Mr. Arrow's Death

I mean to stay vague about the consequences of Arrow's death. You can imagine the nightmarish night and difficult morning I faced after the supernova for yourself, without my help. I feel no need to go beyond the necessary details regarding the aftermath. However, as I have just pointed out, there are a fair amount of details that must be brought to attention to understand the forthcomings of my account, and therefore I shall spend a little time describing these to you.

Throughout most of the night I wanted to blame Jim Hawkins for the accident. I knew that I could not however; for it was what it was—an accident—and I never really could force myself into truly believing Jim had any blame in it at all. I could not blame him then, and I do not blame him now.

I myself was unaccustomed to such intense emotional turmoil that Arrow's loss rendered in me, and I thusly suppressed any sort of distress in emotion brought about by my friend's death. I locked myself in my stateroom that night and had a time of it trying to nurse the open wound that had been exposed on account of this terrible event, without appearing as though I had something to nurse. But because of my determination to endure Arrow's death while maintaining the whole of my dignity, the harmful elements that attacked my wound came more destructively than if I had simply surrendered to my loss. The more I tried to discard it, the worse the sorrow became.

The Doctor, surprisingly enough, was the one to remedy my inhibition. He approached me quickly after Mr. Arrow died and tried to show some support and assurance on my behalf—all of which he gave me with uncertainty himself, which impressed upon me an odd fraudulence at the time, but what I now recognize was simply a reflection of how important it was to him to comfort me. I will admit that I was at first quite inclined to throw his sympathies and comforts their lengths across the floor, and a few into his face, I myself feeling unappreciative that he had uncovered the concealment of my insufficiently nursed wound and then dared to suggest it to me. Nevertheless, the Doctor stayed with me, took my blows and verbal bashes with silent passiveness, and did, I believe, everything he could think of in order to make me feel comfortable in my right to mourn for Mr. Arrow.

Eventually I did so. And the Doctor stayed with me. I was ashamed and embarrassed to weep as I did in front of the Doctor, but he remained with me still, sympathetic and gentle. I could not control my sobs for a long time, and I clung to him, and yet he remained. He was the most earnest help of all to me at that moment, and I will always be grateful to him for it.

The Doctor's and my relationship with one another transitioned into that of a much more open one after his consolation, one that was less formal and more friendly. I believe at first that I initiated this because he had been of such help to me, and I felt indebted to the Doctor, but this slowly went away after we spent more and more time together. Not only had I seen how useful, and indeed, genuinely valuable, he could actually present himself to be, he had seen a side I'd intended to keep hidden; a side that even Mr. Arrow very rarely saw evidence of. I daresay our impressions of one another were impressively altered after our shared, chance revelations.

As mutual as the Doctor and my understanding of each other grew to be, I could, after a long while, sense an odd tension in the air after Arrow died. The crew would mingle amongst themselves and murmur until I had to order them back to their duties, and then, disgruntled, they would, as a group, take their leave. I would find clusters of them on deck about their chores, as if, like cattle, they felt stronger and better defended in huddles. When I would approach, they would scatter, painting surly smiles along their faces, but remaining quiet, active, and obedient. I assumed that they were feeling the stress of the long voyage at last (it had, after all, been a long and slow month since we had launched). My assumption, however, was quickly disputed against, when I quietly observed that, mirroring when I would approach, so too would the crew pick up their spirits when the cyborg galley cook, John Silver, stepped onto the deck.

After this observation I made a point to take more notice of John Silver. He, unlike the crew, seemed unchanged. He had the same simple smile and the same clumsy dexterity whenever he was in sight, and yet the crew depleted their huddles and slapped on grins whenever he turned round to train his mechanical eye upon them.

Tension was arising, this I could tell; we were nearing Treasure Planet and the expectancy hung in the air like a fog. The old idea came back to me: this might be a potentially mutinous group of hands, and from the observations I took from Silver, I thought perhaps I had an ally in him.

In this way the days progressed. Mr. Arrow had been lost; the Doctor had begun to be of much more importance to me in his absence, and the crew slowly began to sink into sullen, anxious feeling, altered only when either I ordered them back to their duties or Silver passed by them.

At last, when the duration of the crew's odd behavior became a long unchanging one, I inquired the Doctor if he had noticed the same thing. He told me that he had. "I'm not much one for crewmen psychoanalysis," he warned me good-naturedly, which I took with a half-hearted smirk, "but it does seem as though their enthusiasm has… turned."

I thanked him and turned back to face the deck. He placed a hand tentatively on the railing of the bridge, close to my own. I glanced at him for a moment, and he seemed as though preparing to say something else, but movements perceived from the corner of my eye made me turn my gaze back upon the deck.

Silver had been standing on deck for a good bit of the morning, very quietly, with a brass spyglass in the grip of his metal hand. I'd paid him no particular attention beyond the normal observations, but I had taken notice of him when he first came up from the galley. He seemed to be doing nothing out of the ordinary then, but he had, at some point while the Doctor and I talked, taken on company, speaking with five members of the crew that huddled about him: Hands, Scroop, Birdbrain Mary, Meltdown, and Pigors. There was a small amount of verbal exchanges that were inaudible between the group and the cook. It seemed relatively heated, going by their faces and body language, until at last I heard Silver hush them urgently. Then all five heads huddled closely together, another moment passed, and then as a group they began moving down to the galley, without a word.

The Doctor and I observed this in silence. I removed my hand from the railing as I sensed the Doctor draw his face slightly nearer to mine, and I heard him whisper, "…And what do you believe of the galley cook Silver?"

I stared after the huddle that had just descended into the galley, and without looking at him, I replied, "…I believe… he is a friend…"

But I was beginning to doubt it.


	9. Pride of Power

**Chapter 9**: Pride of Power

The Doctor and I left the bridge and entered my stateroom, locking it simply to be sure, after agreeing to talk in more privacy. There, the Doctor pulled up a chair near my desk and sat, while I paced about my stateroom. He asked me to sit perhaps three times, and each time I assured him I would and never did. I felt frustrated and anxious, uncertain as to whether or not I should decide to distrust my own hands.

"Well, for pity's sake, Captain, if it bothers you that much," the Doctor quipped with light sarcasm, "then why don't you just go down to the galley and see what they're up to? Why don't you do that?"

I glanced at him, my brow furrowed. "Because, Doctor, that would be tactless and unwise. To go down unarmed when I have no idea as to what—"

"Un_armed_?" he echoed incredulously. It was the first time he had ever interrupted me. "Captain, how seriously do you anticipate mutiny?"

"I don't know," I replied, massaging my eyes. "They never showed signs of it before… Any crew that plans to mutiny shows signs of it before…" I looked up at the Doctor. "Unless one of them is making sure they don't show signs."

"But which one?"

"Exactly. Which one? I can't think of a single one of them with brains enough to keep the others from being obvious in their behavior."

The Doctor shrugged, his palms open. "Then perhaps there is no mutiny in the making. Perhaps they're simply anxious to see Treasure Planet."

I nodded my head. "You're probably correct," I began to say, when suddenly the lookout's voice from overhead shouted down, "Planet _Ho_!"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows in composed excitement and grinned. "Your crew troubles are over."

We unlatched the lock and threw open the door in time to see the massive emerald planet break through a solar cloud. It was indescribably fantastic; huge triangular shards of rock hung from the sky round the planet, and in the dim morning light I could see the two eerie rings spinning about the emerald sphere, glimmering and untouched for a hundred years.

"When do we land?" I heard the Doctor breathe as his fingers touched my arm. I swallowed. "In another thirty minutes," I answered, turning my face towards his to, on impulse, whisper the answer back. Our faces were amazingly close, and for a moment our eyes met and I was stricken by the rich darkness of his irises. Then, collecting myself, I turned on my heel and directed myself back to my stateroom, leaving his touch still tingling on my forearm. "We're still too far away to make a landing."

I returned to my stateroom, the Doctor following behind, and headed for my desk to retrieve some charts for the land. The Doctor closed the door behind him and gripped the lever of the lock, but I lifted my eyes to him and said, "No, Doctor, that isn't necessary… don't lock it," and returned to my work.

We stayed like that for some time, I at my desk and the Doctor standing by the door. After a pause, the Doctor tapped his fingers casually together and looked up at me. "…Captain?" he croaked, clearing his throat afterwards. I raised my head and looked at him.

At that moment Jim Hawkins burst into the room and slammed the door shut, locking it quickly. He then turned round and first caught sight of the Doctor, then of me. At that moment, a sharp whistle was heard from outside on deck.

"Mr. Hawkins?" I inquired with mild confusion. Jim stared at me, and I was momentarily alarmed by the look of having been profoundly betrayed in his newly darkened eyes. Then he closed his eyes tightly, opened them again and strained hurriedly, "Captain, they're planning on killing us and taking over the ship and stealing the treasure—" the boy inhaled sharply, panicked, and I rose from my seat. "What?" I asked.

"He's a—they're all pirates. They're mutinying—right _now_!" Mr. Hawkins exclaimed breathlessly. The pink morph pet that belonged to Silver murmured grimly, and a crash was heard outside. I moved from my desk and hurried to the weapons cabinet where the map was held.

"Pirates on my ship!" I echoed furiously as I threw open the cabinet doors and loaded a flintlock. "I'll see they all hang!" I tossed the Doctor the weapon and he clumsily managed to catch it. "Doctor," I demanded from him, as I pulled out the map from the chest, "familiar with these?"

"Oh, I've seenuh…" he stammered in counterfeit nonchalance, pointing the gun unskillfully at the wall next to me. "…Well… I've read—" A shot rifled from the nozzle of the Doctor's flintlock, sending a deadly energy blast into the wall only about a foot away from where I stood, shattering a spherical decoration mounted upon the wall. I glared at him.

"Uh, no," he confessed quickly, "No, no, I'm not."

I rolled my eyes. An explosion of commotion and shouting was heard from outside my stateroom. The morph glided across the room and paused before the map, fascinated. I ignored it and addressed Mr. Hawkins.

"Defend this," I told him hurriedly, gesturing with the map, "with your life." Jim raised his hands as I made to toss the map to him, but the morph intervened and caught it in its mouth. Mr. Hawkins fought the sphere out from between the creature's rubbery jaws, and I quickly grabbed up my own laser rifle.

There was suddenly a loud snap, and a piece of wood from my stateroom door burnt to ash as a laser beam sheared its way up through the rest of the doorframe. "They're coming in, Captain!" I heard the Doctor shout. "We have to get off the ship," I informed both of them coldly, loading the rifle. "But, Captain…" the Doctor stammered, pointing at the door. "We can't get out, there're _pirates_ out there! We're trapped like—"

I threw my gun's nozzle toward the floor and pulled the trigger, and the report burst a small hole into the hardwood floor, opening into Mr. Arrow's room below.

"…Like rats…with guns!" the Doctor blubbered.

I shot at the floor again and made the hole somewhat bigger, and that was all the time we had. Mr. Hawkins slipped through first, and then the Doctor, and finally I dropped through to the sound of Silver's voice shouting, and the activation of a large gun.

The Doctor and I shot through the floor of Mr. Arrow's room and dropped to the Doctor's room below that, to shoot through his floor and drop to the mechanical room. We then ran as fast as we could to the longboat bay, which was downstairs from the mechanical room and a ways from the mechanical storage hold. By the time we reached the hold I knew we were being pursued by some of the crew, I supposed members small enough to fit through our escape holes. The Doctor fell behind as we all dashed for the stairwell leading to the longboat bay, and as I turned back to the door after entering the bay I caught sight of the Doctor as he fell flat on his face from his place atop the stairwell. In a blur he scrambled for his feet as fast as he could. It was not fast enough, however, and I pulled him by his coat to his feet and thrust him aside, throwing the door shut and welding it and the wall together with the energy beam of my rifle. "To the longboats," I shouted earnestly as I finished my task, "Quickly!"

There was the trouble of then confirming which longboat the Doctor and Mr. Hawkins were in to throw the lever to open the corresponding escape hatch below. The longboat chosen was the nearest at reach, and I pressed the whole of my weight upon the correct lever, throwing it after a bit of a struggle. As the hatch door below our longboat began to slide open, I rushed to the boat and somersaulted aboard, landing lightly beside the Doctor and reloading my rifle. I looked at the Doctor, wide-eyed and agape beside me, and I knelt beside him in the longboat, warning him, "Take your flintlock out, Doctor. We're not going to get out of here without a bit of gun-shooting."

"G-g-_gun-_shooting?" the Doctor repeated, panicked, as he revealed his gun and fumbled with it.

And then the door to the longboat bay was smashed to splinters by the tremendous force of a cannon, and the crew squeezed into the room passed Hands, who did his best to fit all his limbs through the doorway at once. I shot up from behind the bulwarks of our longboat and pulled the trigger several times, shouting to them that they could chew my laser pellets and that they were all pus-filled boils. They returned our fire in a volley, and I was forced to retreat to cover behind the mast of the longboat. With me out of the way, the Doctor picked himself up, took a weak aim, shut his eyes and plugged an ear, and shot upward over the crewmen's heads, hitting the bay's air conditioner. The machine swung violently back and forth, hanging from the ceiling by nothing but its wires, until finally the wires snapped and the heavy conditioner plummeted, crashing through the wooden screen some of the crewmen were standing on. They, along with the air conditioner, fell through the damaged screen to their deaths in an instant.

I regarded the Doctor quizzically. "Did you actually aim for that?"

The Doctor glanced at his gun and fingered his glasses. Astounded, he said loudly, "You know, actually, I did!" My smile grew larger as I set out to congratulate him, but a flash of light caught my attention and I looked to see that another pirate had fired his weapon. Quickly I planted a firm hand upon the Doctor's head and shoved him down onto the floor of the longboat, accompanying him as I answered the man's fire, and we both just barely missed a fatal shot. "Thank you," the Doctor said breathlessly, and I patted the top of his head still underneath my hand.

There was a whirr of engines at that moment and I peeked over the bulwarks of the ship to see Silver at the longboat hatch lever. He had pushed it up again, and, horrified, I checked the door below us. It was closing again. "Ah, _blast_ it!" I shouted angrily. Looking about desperately, I saw the cables that were designed to break away as soon as the longboat bay door was completely open above our heads. If they were to be broken now, perhaps we might be able to fall through the closing hatch and still make an escape. I hurried back to my place beside the Doctor, addressing him as I did so. "Doctor— when I say 'now', shoot out the forward cable. I'll take this one." He nodded, and I felt confident enough in his shooting to feel secure with my new plan of escape. "All right, Doctor, ready yourself. N—"

"Wait, Captain, Jim!" I heard the Doctor shout.

I twisted in my seat to look behind me; Jim Hawkins was not in sight. "Where is he, blast it?" I shouted at the Doctor, and he pointed to his right to one of the catwalks of the longboat bay near where we sat in wait. "He's there! The morph has the map; he must be trying to get it back!"

"We don't have time! The door will be closed soon!"

"You've got to give him some time! His mother will kill me if anything happens to him—"

"I haven't that much time to give him! One minute—then we, at least, must go! We can retrieve him later!"

"One minute," the Doctor repeated, and we both grew silent as we watched Mr. Hawkins battle for the map.

Ever aware of the time that passed, I watched as both Jim and Silver found their quarry, for the morph still had the map within its mouth, and both began to call the morph sweetly to come to them. The morph swayed one way and the other, and finally paused in its quandary to think of a compromise. Wheeling about, it took to a coiled line underneath it that had been left on the catwalk, and disappeared in its center. We all watched this in appall, and then both Silver and Jim took off for the coiled rope, racing each other now for whoever could get there first.

Mr. Hawkins was running out of time. I glanced fleetingly at the closing escape hatch and noted how far along it was, and then looked back to see that Silver's cyborg leg was now hindering his speed, almost seeming to hurt him. Then he fell altogether, and I watched in astounded perplexity when this did not stop him. The galley cook crawled on towards the coiled line, toiling, and a feeling of great desire, almost to the point of obsession, slowly projected from him. When he reached out to grasp the center of the coiled line when he'd made it there, a sickening smile slithered across his face, and I at once felt that this was it; he had the map. But Jim Hawkins reached the line in the next instant, reached down and extracted the map from the rope.

He paused only an instant to stare at the old cook, lying prone and defeated, and then pivoted and ran. At that moment Silver took his mechanical arm, activated its inner workings, and brought forth a flintlock. He aimed it at the retreating boy.

"Jim!" the Doctor called when he saw Silver pull the gun. I grabbed at my rifle. Silver hesitated, and then lowered his gun. He hadn't shot him. Jim came running.

"Now!"

The gun recoiled as the laser pellet shot forth, impacting the back cable and shattering it. Behind me, the Doctor took out the forward.

Instantaneously afterward, the longboat dropped, covering the entire eight feet between itself and the closing hatch in a matter of seconds. The stern crashed heavily upon the sliding door, so that I feared the hull would break apart. It proved durable, however, and remained intact, and within all this excitement I perceived Mr. Hawkins catch hold of the larboard bulwarks of the longboat and hang there as we took our dive out of the escape hatch. He clung to the hull as the boat fell fast toward the surface of Treasure Planet, until at last the Doctor could hurry to his aid.

I myself was hurrying to save the rest of our hides, grabbing frantically for the emergency line and pulling it with all my strength. It seemed ten years before the longboat's solar sail unfurled and caught us, slowing our descent with a heavy jolt. I scrambled then for the controls and took my place at the steer. "Parameters met…" I calculated aloud as I hit the correct buttons, "hydraulics engaged…."

The engine of the longboat activated, rocketing us out of the dive and into a rapid advancement toward the emerald planet and certain escape.

There was a moment during which all of us felt at last in a fair amount of safety. My mind was still whirring, but as I attempted to catch my breath, the Doctor started to shout in a flustered panic. "Captain!" he cried, pointing over my shoulder. "_Laser ball at twelve o'clock_!"

The cannon! In all the confusion I had forgotten that Meltdown had access to the ship's cannon and therefore our potential destruction. Hurriedly I whirled round to see the Doctor's observation careening towards us faster than we were making our getaway. Instinctively I pulled back the tiller with the hope that we had enough time to swerve out of the laser ball's path. I could feel the longboat rear to starboard. The bow swiveled away, carrying the Doctor and Mr. Hawkins away from the oncoming danger. For a moment's time, I was sure we had avoided collision.

I felt the scalding heat of the laser ball before I felt the impact. I remember thinking that perhaps it had just grazed passed; that we had already succeeded from its path and it was just far away enough from the stern to come into contact. Then I felt a sudden burning, crushing sensation overtake the left side of my body upon its impaction. The scalding feeling gnawed my side into a raw numbness that invaded fully to my left underarm, and I fell forward, stifling a cry of pain, as the laser ball collided with the tip of the stern, tearing off and destroying the engine and the sail.

There was a blinding instant during which I must have blacked out from my shock, for when I lifted my head from my feeble position we had succeeded a good way into Treasure Planet's atmosphere. I quickly took hold of the steer again, fighting my disorientation, and guided the longboat as best I could onto the mossy floor of Treasure Planet.

Our landing consisted of green blurs and strange canopies as we hurtled toward the ground. There was a point close to the earth where we plunged into the head of a gas-filled plant, tearing into the waxy surface and then tearing out the other side. It was unfortunate that the odd plant had been in our path, for it managed to throw us into a nose-dive, and as we slammed into the moss and undergrowth of the ground, the bow dug deep into the earth as the stern ascended into the air, pulling us into a steepening slant. We skidded along in that hazardous position for a good five to eight seconds before the stern ascended over and passed the bow, flipping the longboat and crashing her belly-up onto the ground, rifling Jim, the Doctor, and me face-first into the undergrowth.

There was a silence as each of us gradually regained our bearings underneath the damaged hull. I concentrated my attention upon my left side; it was tingling and numbing, which concerned me, but not as much as the growing realization that I was having difficulty breathing.

Then Jim lifted the hull, the daylight came back to us all, and I heard Mr. Hawkins mumble detachedly. The Doctor fixed his glasses, which were miraculously unbroken, rose to his feet slowly, and dusted himself off. "Oh, my goodness…" he murmured. "That was more fun than I ever want to have again."

I was determined that nothing was wrong. Forcing a chuckle, I pushed off my hands and rose to my full height. "…Not one of my…" I managed, pulling at my uniform, "…gossamer landings…" As soon as I'd finished my statement, a sharp, streaking pain shot through my left side, stopping me short. I clutched my side involuntarily and fell back to my knees. I was gasping; breathing grew more difficult, and then slowly became easier, and I felt the Doctor's hand upon my shoulder.

I shoved off my knees once more, the pain again shooting bluntly through me, and voiced what I was so determined to believe. "Oh don't fuss," I reassured them. The pain shot up my side as I spoke, and I stumbled because of it, in spite of myself. The Doctor caught me, but I stubbornly regained my own, removing a few stray locks of hair from my face by running my fingers through my hair. "A slight bruising, that's all… cup of tea and I'll be right as rain."

My left side was screaming. However, I refused to collapse again, and, composedly as possible, I placed my left hand behind me, making a point to keep it well off my side, and called for the attention of Mr. Hawkins.

At a closer look I realized that I was speaking to the Doctor. My side radiated a terrible burning sensation, and as I blinked I found my vision was somewhat blurred. Stiffly I turned to Mr. Hawkins and, struggling more than I would have liked, said, "…The map…if you please."

Jim was quick to react, pulling the map from his pocket and presenting it to me with a sigh of relief.

The map was its golden self, and glinted triumphantly in Mr. Hawkins's hand as he presented to me. But as he stared victoriously at it, the map slowly took on a pinkish hue, and lost its shimmering surface. The indentions on its face lost their distinction, and then without warning it lifted into the air and turned into a deep pink color, imploded upon itself and revealed its true form to be Silver's pet morph.

The little creature began to laugh hysterically, and Mr. Hawkins was instantly seething.

"Morph!" he shouted. "Morph, where's the map?"

The gooey animal took the form of a coiled line, and dropped a piece of itself formed separately into the map within the middle of the rope.

Mr. Hawkins roared exasperatedly, "Are you _serious_? It's back on the _ship_?"

The pink creature giggled sheepishly. I couldn't bear to comprehend how we'd managed to maintain our unlucky streak and lose the map to the pirates, but it was at least evident that we no longer possessed the map. The morph must have turned itself into a reproduction of the map we truly required, and in his mad rush, Mr. Hawkins hadn't noticed. This was horrendous news, considering that we had no provisions, no shot, and now, we didn't even have the map. The crew had everything.

The pain in my side had subsided again to a steady numbness. Hair fell over my eyes once more as I lowered my head, the discomfort in my left side stealing away most of my concentration. Then I heard the distant roar of an engine, and, tossing my face skyward, I saw another one of the _Legacy's_ longboats in hot pursuit of a rising stack of smoke just to the east of where we were. The morph was gurgling loudly, and I cautioned, "Stifle that blob and get low."

The pain shot through me again and I flinched, restraining a larger reaction. Breathing deliberately, I motioned to the sky and the longboat.

"We've got company."

Thanks for the reviews! I'd greatly appreciate it if you dropped one off for this chapter, too! )


	10. Of Veracity and Sincerity

Chapter 10: Of Veracity and Sincerity

A period of silence ensued while each of us took a position behind our lopsided longboat for cover, in case it was necessary. I gripped my rifle and glanced over the port side. I couldn't see the pirates' longboat anymore, and feared that they had landed. Frustrated and weary, I hit the butt of my gun upon the ground and, battling through the knife in my side, observed hoarsely, "We need a more defensible position."

I mentally looked over our options. We hadn't many: so far, we knew very little of the landscape we were marooned on, and our entire arsenal consisted of one rifle and a little flintlock. I considered sending the Doctor out to survey the terrain, and perhaps to find a better position of defense, but as I drew a breath my side received an intense stinging sensation, and I exhaled, feeling it strike up and then melt into a heavy throb. I admitted to myself that I might need the Doctor; my side had never behaved so badly before, but that left us with no choice but to remain at the longboat and wait like sitting ducks for the pirates to find us, for there was no one else to send.

Mr. Hawkins was sitting glumly beside me, stroking the now quite regretful looking morph, seemingly in some deep thought. I stared blankly ahead of me, wondering whether it was better to just send the Doctor forth and keep the boy out of potential danger to face alone. The Doctor's words came back to me: his mother would be very upset if anything was to happen to him, and I found that I couldn't blame her. But then his battle for the map returned to my memory. He had been determined in his attempt to retrieve the map, and although unsuccessful, he had proven that he could be independent, and a quick thinker besides. And Silver hadn't shot him. I reckoned up with a certain amount of optimism that we held a marvelous factor that worked to our advantage: Silver's weakness was on our side.

I trusted Jim. He was a good man in his line. "Mr. Hawkins," I said through the pain in my side, handing him the flintlock. "Scout ahead."

Jim took the weapon impassively and checked its priming. "Aye, Captain," he replied, and rose to his feet.

I attempted so as well, but the pain in my side objected bitterly, sending fiery needles up and down my left rib. I crumpled, crying out, and landed into the Doctor's ready arms. He eased me onto the ground again, murmuring quietly to me, and when he had propped me against the longboat he took a deep breath and sighed, "Now… let's have a look at that."

Mr. Hawkins took his leave.

I forced an amused smirk. "A look at what?" I asked shortly, easing off the boat as gingerly, but as nonchalantly as I could. The Doctor kneeled before me and poked his glasses. "A look at your side, Captain. I think you might have hurt it."

"Ah. Well, there's a _monumental_ conclusion in that, Doctor," I told him with bland sarcasm, fighting passed the choke overtaking my voice, "and I congratulate you for your cleverness—but I think even the morph knows I'm injured, so there's really not much necessity for you to confirm it—" I could not force any more than that, for the pain in my side flared angrily, and I had to clench my teeth rather suddenly to prevent myself from too large a reaction to it. I really couldn't understand why I was being so obstinate; was not the Doctor attending to any injuries the reason I'd sent Jim ahead and not him? Still, I couldn't stand seeming weaker than I had made myself appear, and the Doctor looked worried behind his little gold-framed spectacles, and I'd convinced myself long ago that the last thing I wanted was pity.

The Doctor leaned forward in an all-out crouch when my sentence cut short for the pain, and he evenly distributed his weight upon his hands and knees so that his face was level with mine.

"Captain…" he cautioned earnestly.

I dropped back against the longboat. The pain in my side was a roaring conflagration. "Have at it," I relented.

He rose up from his hands to his knees again and scooted toward me. Then, rubbing his nape, he said, "…If-if you'll forgive me… Unbutton your… coat."

I obliged to this, casting my eyes down to my middle to undo the three buttons lining the front of my uniform. Underneath I wore a white shirt, and when my coat was completely undone, I attempted to twist round, wondering if perhaps any blood had stained its side.

"Th-there isn't any blood," the Doctor assured me when he saw me turn to my left. "Try not to move any more than you have to, Captain. I can handle it from here."

So I lay still, feeling foolishly helpless. The Doctor came quite close to me and leaned forward, pulling the end of my shirt out from under the belt of my pants. I looked up at his face, but his eyes were concentrated upon my side. I looked away.

"It hurts when you speak, does it not, Captain?" he inquired somberly, and I suddenly felt his fingers slide underneath my shirt and press gently against my left side. It surprised me only a moment, but for that moment I sat dumbly, distracted mindlessly by his touch. The tips of his fingers felt smooth and warm, like marble pressing gently along my rib. I absorbed myself in it, sitting helplessly as it became a sensual inundation, until at last I fought to pry myself from the sensation. Had he asked a question? Yes, he had—and quickly I brought my heavy focus to his inquiry, bringing me round from the dizzying concept that he was touching my skin.

Answering his question did not occur without some hesitation. I'd never had one wish to show the Doctor that I could get hurt. He'd seen that I was susceptible to vulnerability already, and I couldn't reveal it to him again. I'd embarrassed myself enough in front of him.

"No…" I replied slowly, "it doesn't hurt, not unbearably—"

The knife in my side stabbed so forcefully and so suddenly that I could not catch myself, and a cry escaped me before I could stifle it. The Doctor's reaction to this was, for the most part, subtle, which I greatly appreciated. The largest reaction he had was in his fingers, of which I was still acutely aware: when I cried out, he snapped them from my side.

"_Doesn't_ it?" he asked from me again, this time a bit more forcefully, and I clenched my teeth behind unopened lips in frustration. He watched me for a moment as I sat stoically, struggling a little to take in ragged breaths. Eventually I regained the ability to breathe normally, and his fingers once more began to press my rib, slowly, reviving the sensuous stupidity it rendered in me.

"Feel free," he informed me dully, after another short pause had been allowed to pass between us, "to tell the truth whenever you like." I glared at him, and he added almost gently, looking at me, "I'm not here to pass judgment."

I remained inarticulate; I felt I had already answered his question quite sufficiently.

He chuckled softly. "How long has it been since you've shown even the slightest evidence of frailty?"

I looked back up at him incredulously. "Twenty-four _years_", I replied exaggeratedly, deciding to disregard the performance I gave him when Mr. Arrow was lost, and added sharply, "And I'll thank you for keeping your _comments_ out of—"

But at that very moment the Doctor's fingers pressed down against the location of my injury, and I again had to stifle a cry.

"A fracture… Perhaps even a broken rib, I think," the Doctor diagnosed in an indifferent sort of way, removing his fingers from my side. "Better not talk unless absolutely necessary, Captain, so as to prevent the possibility of a punctured lung."

I stared at him wildly, as though I expected that simply from being under my glare the Doctor would liquefy and melt away. "If I don't speak," I coughed out, "then how am I supposed to communicate my commands to you or Mr. Hawkins? Like it or not, Doctor, we're in a less than secure situation, and—"

"—and like it or not," the Doctor broke in, to my great astonishment, "we will have to muddle through without you making so much as a peep."

My jaw dropped perceptibly before I thought to shut my mouth. I was by now very much appalled. "Was that a _facetious_ comment I heard venture out of you? I could have you in for _insubordination_, Doctor, but I shall pretend I didn't hear it so long as you will drop this ridiculous nonsense—"

"Captain, _stop talking_."

"I _have_ to talk if I'm to guide any of us out of this _mutiny_!"

"I don't think you're in any condition to do so much—"

"_I_ shall be the judge of _that_!"

With that my side roared in protestation, and I felt myself tense at the pain that ran along my rib. Quieting, I leaned back against one of the thwarts in the longboat and breathed sharply. The pain did not dispatch for some time, and I remained in that position for the duration, with the Doctor kneeling beside me, and the realization that perhaps I was more incapacitated than what I wanted to believe beating severely over me. I felt humiliated, and quite upset that I should bear humiliation, and was quick to direct my frustration at what I considered to be the one to blame. The Doctor had, after all, proposed the preposterous idea that I should sit quietly while my crew rebelled in wait for my side to heal. What would he do without me? Without my guidance, without my help? I felt it safe to assume that if the pirates attacked, he would have little better an idea of what to do than if a ship he was sailing underwent some minor turbulence in its flight. He would panic, and fall short of experience, and meanwhile I would be sitting there like a doll with the decree not to deliver so much as a peep. Oh, well, I thought, let him feel in control. Let him feel useful and intelligent in his declarations. He would find that he was wrong and I was right when the pirates took us prisoner, tied us and gagged us and marooned us here while they stole off with their trillions of gold.

But as I thought of all this, a strange indignation took hold of me. It was a feeling that, despite the revelation it would bring to prove he was wrong, I didn't want to see the Doctor fail in so important an endeavor. I found that underneath it all, I was in every truth quite worried for the Doctor.

After a long time, the Doctor moved to his vest. "Here," he said simply. I looked back up at him.

He pulled from the inside his vest a long piece of white cloth, which was almost a dishtowel in appearance, but was actually comprised of much finer material. He lifted the thin piece of cloth to present it to me as if he were giving me a casual gift, and then inched forward and draped it about my neck.

"What in the world are you doing…?" I asked him, still owning a rather poisonous tone of voice. The Doctor looked at me. "Hush. Don't ask. It isn't necessary."

I sat silent as I was bidden and let the Doctor take my left arm gently from my side and tie a knot with the two ends of the cloth around my forearm, creating a sling for my arm. I looked at him again, raising an eyebrow, and he explained to me, "A sling… I thought it would help to keep your arm off your side. It… looked as though… Well, I find it probable that it hurts you a little when your arm rests on your injured side."

Upon thinking back, I recalled with slight, irritated amusement that I had moved my left arm as far away from my injured side as possible. I smiled just slightly, in spite of myself, as I stared at the manufactured sling. Perhaps the Doctor was more observing, or efficient, or even more vital than I had been giving him credit for. The Doctor twisted the new sling around until the knot he'd tied at my arm sat comfortably at my nape, and with that he sat back on his heels. I then thanked him. He looked, somewhat reprimanding, up at me, and I said slowly, "…It was necessary."

There was a long pause. We watched each other carefully, perhaps I more than the Doctor, and I was again stricken by the profound, eloquent dark of his eyes. We were sitting relatively close together, and for a brief period I found within myself a soft desire to move closer. This I never did, but as the long silence passed the Doctor scooted forward on his knees until he was quite close beside me behind the longboat. He took up the rifle and sat down, his knees out in front of him and the gun in his lap. He touched his glasses, and then looked at me. I noticed with a strange awe that if I'd moved only a breath's distance, our noses would have touched. It was a euphoric realization, but as soon as it had come it had gone, for the Doctor cleared his throat.

"I'll keep watch until Jim comes back. In the meantime, Captain… I want you to rest."

Sleep came easily to me.


	11. A More Defensible Position

Chapter 11: A More Defensible Position

I awoke some time later to a terrible prickling in my right leg. I'd been sleeping uncomfortably upon it, and in that position it had inexorably fallen into a state of the pins and needles. Resituating myself, I opened my eyes and inadvertently looked up. The Doctor was looking about him, his eyes patient, and held the gun at a slant, the nozzle supported upright by his left hand and the butt sitting in his lap. I then realized I was resting my head upon his shoulder, and I supposed it must have drifted there while I slept. I closed my eyes again without a second thought and, feeling as though under sedatives, I very willingly fell back to sleep.

I awoke again to the sound of the Doctor's voice pulling me from my subconscious. He whispered to me somewhat urgently, and I stirred slowly, my eyelids feeling indomitably heavy. At that moment I felt four tentative fingers slide gently across my face. This awoke me quickly, for it stirred something inside me I'd never quite felt before, and I lifted my head hurriedly off his shoulder. When the Doctor saw that I was awake, he took his hand away and quickly and hesitated. "I'm…" he floundered for a moment. I stared at him intently, and he swallowed. "I'm sorry…" he said, and then added, "…to wake you, Captain, but I can hear someone coming; I'd like for you to be awake… just to make sure."

I sat readily in a moment, still feeling as though under some sort of tranquilizer, and looked about dizzily for whatever was making this audible advancement.

There were indeed clumsy rustles from distant foliage, and I wondered if Silver and the others had found us before Jim Hawkins had had a chance to find a better position. Then it occurred to me that they might have found Mr. Hawkins and captured him already, and they were now here simply to pick up the rest of the pieces. However, there a came a hailing voice from a near distance that sounded reassuringly like Jim's, which was then accompanied by another voice of which I could not supply recognition. The Doctor stood, and out of the foliage came Jim Hawkins and Silver's morph, followed by a little copper metal man jumping round behind him.

"Jim! You're here! Thank goodness; are you—" the Doctor began, but Mr. Hawkins waved his hand dismissively.

"I'm fine, Doc, listen: I found this really great place to hide for a while. It's back there…" and Jim turned and pointed in the direction he'd come. The robotic man accompanying Jim stood fidgeting beside him gleefully. I stared at him for a moment with narrowed eyes, and he took notice of me and waved like a child. The Doctor looked down at the odd mechanical man. The copper robot looked up at the Doctor, waved stiffly, and then leaned to Mr. Hawkins and whispered loudly, "Ah, Jimmy—Jimmy, aren't you gonna introduce me?" and then straightened. Jim looked dully at the Doctor. "Doc… he comes with the hiding place. Booby prize. His name's B.E.N. B.E.N, this is the Doc."

B.E.N took the Doctor's hand and rigorously shook it. "That's 'B.E.N.' for Bio Electronic Navigator-- Me n'Jimmy here are getting to be the best of buddies, ain't we, Jimmy?"

Mr. Hawkins nodded wearily.

I smirked at Jim's disposition toward the Navigator. It was slowly dawning on me that our B.E.N was much older than he was really acting. A hundred years ago, Bio Electronic Navigators were designed to have distinct personalities, as though they were another sailor. The prototypes for Navigators today are programmed much simpler, with hardly more than a capacity to navigate precisely and communicate in intelligible language with their commanders. But from B.E.N's obvious programming, I concluded with impressed astonishment that the little robot was a Navigator built one hundred years ago. I wondered fleetingly and humorously if B.E.N had known Captain Flint.

Jim noticed me and wiped his face, made to tap B.E.N on the back of his head for his attention, and instead fumbled for a place at the top of the android's head. I noticed here that B.E.N was missing an entire portion of his head—the memory, it looked to me—but B.E.N seemed unaffected and granted Jim a kind of childish attentiveness. Jim said, "And that's the Captain. Captain, this is B.E.N."

B.E.N hurried with hand outstretched to shake mine, but the Doctor quickly stopped him and remarked, "Ah… she's in a temporary state of recuperation, B.E.N. You can shake her hand later."

"Pleasure to meet you anyway, Captain!" B.E.N assured me, coming to attention and saluting. I nodded my head in his direction and forced a smile.

"Where is the hideout, Jim?" the Doctor asked. Jim's hand crept to the back of his head and he admitted quietly, "It's kinda' far… but it's a great place to hide. We're gonna hafta' follow B.E.N to get there again; it's where B.E.N lives, he knows where to go."

The Doctor took a deep breath, and turned to me. "Captain…? Can you stand?"

My dignity flew back into my face. Because of my injury, my slumber, and the Doctor's reassuring aid, I'd forgotten all about it-- now it flared again and I placed a hand upon the thwart I'd been resting upon to push off of. "I feel certain," I replied.

I did make it to a stand, but didn't feel sure enough on my feet to take my hand from the longboat's support. My side was beginning bitterly to object, and I again felt foolish and dependent, and wished that the Doctor's sling had never come into creation. I tried my balance by taking my hand off the longboat, felt secure enough, took a step, and nearly lost my balance, for the shock of the knife in my side, a pain that I hadn't felt for some time, stiffened me so that I had to stop and involuntarily clutch my side. I looked at the Doctor for a moment, frustrated and defeated at the same time, and he approached me.

His face came close to mine and he looked me in the eyes. "Does your side still hurt?" he asked in a gentle whisper. I looked back at his eyes, again senselessly distracted by them. Since I had stopped moving altogether, the pain was indeed beginning to subside, and I blinked deliberately to break the tight lock our eyes had forged and glanced down. "Only a little," I told him stiffly. He nodded professionally at this and shifted his weight, buckled over, and in one decided sweep I had been scooped into his arms, one arm tucked securely at my upper back, and the other supporting my legs at the back of my knees. I swung both my arms about his neck instinctively and stared at him, flabbergasted. He returned my gaze, eyebrows lifted, as if expecting me to begin a casual conversation with him. I nearly hissed, "Are you _insane_?"

He shook his head. "Just concerned," and he turned to face Mr. Hawkins and B.E.N once again. "Lead the way, B.E.N. We're ready now."

The Doctor proved a steady ride. I had settled almost comfortably in his arms long before we reached the automaton's home, and will own that I slipped in and out of consciousness. I had bouts of heavy sleep, during which I had strange and elaborate dreams, mostly very vivid, in which I was flying, or at home with my family as a child, or somewhere very dark, listening to the gentle beating of someone's heart. And then there were times when I was awake, but disoriented. I can vaguely recall at one point asking where Arrow was. But there were nightmares dominantly, all terrible; I remember being chased by some unknown danger, and not being able to run because I couldn't breathe. I would dream the pirates found us, and that they were going to leave us marooned on Treasure Planet. I dreamt at one point of a massive explosion, which blasted away something that I understood only intuitively to be extremely valuable.

And then I would snap awake and unfailingly find myself in the Doctor's arms, secure, supported, and unfaltering, and my panic rendered from the nightmares would slip away. I could hear the Doctor's heart beating; my head was propped against his chest, for I had dropped my arms from about his neck some time ago. There would be no immediate danger in our midst, no sign of burden or enemy, and I would inadvertently drift to sleep again, to once more brave my tumultuous subconscious.

I awoke in the early evening feeling slightly better and much more in command of myself. My side was bluntly throbbing, but cost me no painful discomfort, and soon I heard the copper robot shout enthusiastically, "There it is, everybody! Ya like it?"

And slowly we made our way up the sloping hill leading to B.E.N's home. I lifted my eyes to the doorway, which was like the mouth of a cave, still elevated above me at the top of the knoll. The structure was not much more familiar a landmark than the alien trees and shrubbery that lined the surface of Treasure Planet, and with so many strange surroundings I suddenly felt oddly misplaced. I closed my eyes again and rested my head once more against the Doctor's chest, still for some reason feeling somewhat weary, and he shifted the position of his arm slowly and whispered, "Are you awake?"

"Yes, Doctor," I responded with a nod, without opening my eyes, and he said nothing more.

As we entered the formation I could hear the sound of the robot's voice chattering away about dusting more, and then a crash made itself audible and I opened my eyes to see that he had knocked away a chess board and its pieces from a small table, which had uncovered a pair of oversized, polka-dotted undergarments that he abashedly hid from view behind him. I closed my eyes again indifferently.

"Awww," the little robot began again, and cooed, "Isn't that sweet?"

I was thinking to myself just how laughably indifferent to the Navigator I was when, unexpectedly, I felt myself lowered back upon the ground. I opened my eyes again as the Doctor laid my head gingerly upon a small, cold metallic dome rising up from the floor, and the copper man commented sweetly, "I find old-fashioned romance so touching, don't you?"

The Doctor looked up quickly.

The robot was gone and came back again, carrying a trey of cups with motor oil in them, and offered genuinely, "How 'bout drinks for the happy couple?"

The Doctor took one look at the oil and grimaced, covering it quickly with a forced smile, and replied politely, "Oh! Ooh, ooh… no, uh, no thank you, we— we don't drink…" and he removed his coat cautiously, "…and, er… we—we're not a couple." He smiled at me, and I blinked slowly, smiling weakly in return.

The Doctor stared dumbly for a moment before clearing his throat, and commented on the markings imprinted upon the dome-shaped walls of the interior of B.E.N's cavern: they looked, was the Doctor's observation, remarkably like the ones on the map. B.E.N. listened intently, having put back his drinks, but I lay quite without attention to the Doctor's observations, all at once thinking of a surprise ambush or trap that our enemy might have prepared for us. I sat up and looked about, caught sight of Jim Hawkins standing near the door holding the gun, and coughed, "Mr. Hawkins, stop anyone who tries to approach—"

I had spoken. I remembered I was not supposed to as the knife in my side ran through my rib and I choked. The Doctor eased me back upon the metallic lump, accomplishing rolling up his coat into a bundle and placing it behind my head to rest upon. "Yes, yes," he told me sternly, "now you listen to me: stop giving orders for a few milliseconds," and he placed one of his hands upon my own, "and lie still."

I looked at him keenly, and smiled, my eyes narrowed. Speaking more carefully, I commented, "Very forceful, Doctor…" and then, softening a little, added, "Go on… say something else."

A careful smile spread sincerely along his face, and I couldn't help but notice that his gaze was almost affectionate. I very nearly called him on it, when I heard our automaton host shout jubilantly, "Look! There're s'more of yer buddies!" and he turned round and called to what I could only assume to be the pirates we meant to avoid, "Hey, fellas! We're over here!"

Sure enough, a volley of shots came blasting in at the little robot, and Jim Hawkins came speedily to his rescue, whipping the Navigator from the door and answering the shots with the flintlock. In a moment or two I heard the gruff voice of Silver, toned now with a thick overcoat of assertiveness and intelligence, angrily command for the gunmen to 'stop wasting their fire'. In the next moment he hailed our position with the same smooth, syrupy voice I was more familiar with, calling for Mr. Hawkins by the same nickname I'd heard since the first day of our voyage: 'Jimbo'.

"If it's, ah… all right with th' Cap'm…" he could be heard calling out as he made his way up the knoll, "I'd like… a short word witcha'. No tricks! Just a little palaver."

I scoffed contemptuously, leaning earnestly on my left elbow, which was a good ways from my side. "Come to bargain for the map!" I advised Jim bitterly. "Don't listen. Pestilential…" I tried to rise to a sitting position, but my side flared in objection, and I fell back against the small dome, letting a cry go without stifling. The Doctor placed his hands firmly on my right hand, and warned me urgently, "Captain…"

"That means," Jim was suddenly articulate, and the Doctor and I both looked up at him as he lowered his gun furtively, grinning, "that he thinks we still have it."

Thus it was arranged that Jim would reply to Silver's hail, and try to talk terms with him. The Doctor was to keep to the door with the rifle, seeing to it that he did not expose himself, and fire a shot should any danger to Jim be intended. And so Jim Hawkins went down the incline to speak with his former confidant, the morph pet trailing behind, leaving the Doctor by the door and me propped intently against the metallic rise and the Doctor's coat, while B.E.N waited with some obvious oblivion as to how dire this situation was.

We waited in unmoving silence for some time. Silver and Jim spoke low with one another, and the Doctor relaxed his grip upon the rifle after four or five minutes. Then, slowly, like a wave, their voices grew louder and louder, gaining in both tones intensity and anger. The Doctor tensed as their voices rose, until at last. Jim's voice shouted out over the trees something incomprehensible-- a sentence ending with the word 'map' and a mocking 'by thunder'. There was then a pause where they spoke low to one another again, until at last Silver's voice exploded, distinctly audible from where we were positioned in the structure: "…Either I get that map by dawn tomorrow, or so help me… I'll use the ship's cannons to _blast_ ya' _all_ to Kingdom _Come_!"

At which point in time the Doctor lifted the rifle fully to eyelevel and prepared to aim. I held my breath, but nothing happened, and the Doctor lowered his weapon again, and a few minutes later Jim reentered the cavern, despondent and quiet.

The Doctor dropped the rifle and looked Mr. Hawkins in the face. "Well…?" he asked, a little frantic. Jim sighed heavily, running his fingers slowly through his hair.

"We've gotta get the map back, Doc. …If Silver gets it first…we'll be in a lot of danger."

We all sat in a silence that seemed to press upon us the entire weight of Flint's trove.


	12. We Have No Advantages

**Author's Note:** Thank you so very much for the reviews! I can't tell you how much I enjoy getting them:D

Chapter 12: Narrative Continued By the Doctor—We Have No Advantages

I had a great deal to worry about as the evening wore on. My nerves were indeed on their last legs, and as the sun slid at last behind the horizon, so too did my optimism for our cause.

There was very little to eat in the Bio Electronic Navigator's home; such accommodations were useless to the little machine, since few robots eat; however, Jim and I were soon aware of its absence, and practiced a little scrounging vainly for anything edible. It was also a misery that we had no water, not only for our consumption, but for other necessary purposes as well. I had noticed that the Captain, lying as quietly and resiliently as she could, had shown signs of disorientation before, as well as bouts of restless sleeps, followed by periods of heavy slumber. I had done my best to keep an eye out for her as much as I could, but with practically nothing to nurse her injury with, I could not prevent her fever for long.

Nevertheless, when it came I did all I could for her: I encouraged her to sleep, I sat with her, I spoke with her, and I often felt her forehead to check her temperature; not that I could necessarily differentiate between high and low fever—I simply remembered Sarah, my good friend and Jim's mother, telling me of the procedure once or twice when Jim had fallen ill, and I wanted to try everything I could think of to help the Captain. At one point, when her fever was evidently very high, she began lightly to perspire while she slept, and, dabbing the droplets from her forehead, I lamented over the fact we had no water to cool her fever with. Jim suggested that we throw open her coat, and I did, and the perspiration slowly went away. We left her coat undone.

As for ammunition, we were running somewhat low. The supply the Captain had been able to carry off the ship had been a sparse amount, for we had had no time to prepare, and were just lucky to escape with our lives. I feared the worst. The pirates knew our location—they had made camp not a mile from it—and could at any moment come in and take charge. The fact that we were feigning possession of the map only spread the icing upon our cake of troubles, for if the pirates _were_ to take charge and discover that we were living off a lie, they would inevitably have our heads upon their wall.

We had no advantage. We were outnumbered, out of shot, and out of options. We had nothing but the still burning determination of Jim, who wanted with all his heart to retrieve the map, which he felt would then bestow upon us the ultimate advantage.

"Maybe I could get out and back to the ship when it's really late at night," he might devise.

"More than likely they'll have sentries waiting," I would discourage.

"It'd be dark. They wouldn't be able to see me," he might argue.

"They'll have a fire going; they'll see you," I would predict.

And Jim would sit and devise other plans: perhaps we could sneak up and take the sentries, perhaps we could use B.E.N. as a diversion, or perhaps we could sneak up and put out their fire so they couldn't see; all of which I considered and then fretted as being too dangerous.

"Well, we gotta do _some_thing, Doc. We can't just sit here."

The evening turned at last to night, and the Captain's condition steadily grew worse. She would awaken at times with a start, and not know where she was. Her fever increased, and she suffered troubling nightmares, often waking soon afterwards disoriented or confused. I would come to her when I would discover that she was awake, and try to soothe her as best I could, reassuring her that things were all right, reminding her of where she was, and sitting beside her until she fell asleep again. She sometimes asked me where Mr. Arrow was, to which I would reply that he was all right, too. But there were other times when she wanted nothing to do with me, thinking herself somewhere else and wishing she could get some work done without interruption. She would then fall back to sleep.

Although on occasion she hadn't the faintest notion of where she was, or lay thinking that she was somewhere else, she could very easily recognize me, and usually Jim, in any given situation, which heartened me. My worry for her was very great, and I don't know what I would have done had she been so disoriented she did not know who I was. I attempted to make her as comfortable as possible, even if that meant intruding upon her personal boundaries and moving her arms out of the long sleeves of her jacket to keep her cool. She was sedately passive to my touch and my aid, which she had shown only vague hints of for over most of the course of the afternoon, and so I took this to my advantage and spent a good part of the night caring for her.

Sometimes when I sat with her she would speak to me, which I tried gently to discourage, feeling that she and I both had enough on our plates without a punctured lung. Nevertheless, she would talk very quietly to me, sometimes in a disoriented, almost nonsensical way, but oftentimes very seriously.

"Doctor, listen to me," she told me earnestly once in a nearly inaudible whisper, as if she were disclosing a vital secret to me, "the map is the longboat bay, in the coil of line on the catwalk. If you should need it, I want to make sure you know it is there. You will remember?"

I promised her I would.

"You know, I'm terribly worried about you, Doctor," she went on after a pause, quite sincerely concerned. "…Mr. Hawkins… as well, but moreover you… you're such an invalid in…situations like this. I don't want you to get hurt…"

I brushed a lock of hair from her face and grinned confidently to assure her, stating, "You needn't worry about me, Captain… just rest. And don't speak. It isn't necessary."

When she asked me if I would remain beside her, I complied, and she fell asleep quickly after that, and didn't wake again for a long time.

Jim had been standing restlessly by the door. We could see from where we were that the pirates did indeed have a fire going, but Jim could not make out whether a sentry had been assigned or not. I warned him decidedly not to risk it, and it surprised me a little when he obeyed. But despite his obedience in staying in B.E.N's lodge, he stood agitatedly by the door and mumbled, trying still to piece together a plan of attack.

I sat beside the Captain, who had now slept motionless for nearly two hours after her last discourse with me, and I was beginning to worry. During the first thirty or forty minutes of those hours she had perspired and fidgeted, murmuring in her sleep and wincing in discomfort. I could think of nothing new to do for her except move her down a little closer to the door for fresh air, where about thirty minutes later her fever broke and she slept deeply.

She now was almost unmoving, and I was desperately anticipating when she might wake up again. She had not slept straight through so long a time once before during this night, and even though I kept telling myself that 'no news is good news', there was a growing worry that maybe this was, in truth, bad news.

Jim was mumbling rather sarcastically about us digging a tunnel through the floor and out to safety with an assorted, useless supply of rusty spoons B.E.N had, when I threw up my hands and declared, "It's hopeless!"

"I was only kidding, Doc, we can't dig through that metal floor—"

"Not that," I shook my head rigorously, "_Her_! She's never waking up again! I failed! I can't believe it! I actually let her—"

I was jumping to outlandish conclusions, and Jim leaned over me to look at the Captain skeptically. "Doc," Jim tapped me on the shoulder, "Check it out, Doc… she's still breathing."

I did look down to see her chest rise and fall with shallow breaths, and petitioned Heaven, crouching on all fours and placing my hand upon her forehead. "How's her temperature, Doc?" Jim inquired, straightening.

"I don't know! I can't tell!" I said ecstatically. "But she's still _with_ us!"

Jim turned back to the door. "She broke her fever, right?"

"I believe so," I replied, rocking back upon my knees and cleaning my glasses. "Good," Jim remarked. "Maybe when she wakes up she can help figure out how to get out of this mess."

But, when the Captain did actually wake up (after another good hour), she was, to the contrary, quite inarticulate. She lay there quite in control of herself again, saying nothing as arbitrary as she had previously during the night, and rather seeming to sort thoughts and urgencies in her mind. When she tried to speak, she would sometimes tangle up her thoughts and give up the sentence; also I noticed that she was having growing difficulty speaking because her breathing had not improved as much as necessary, and so oftentimes it would not be her entangled thoughts that made her give up, but the pain in her side when she breathed to speak.

Nevertheless, she was awake and coherent, which encouraged Jim and me to believe the Captain was making her way towards recovery. This was heartening, but did little to renew our spirits fully. Jim slowly sank into the conclusion that maybe there really wasn't any way of getting the map, and that in the morning we'd all be Silver's captives. Our own resignation was bitter to taste, and the worst defeat of its kind: we had given up, defeated ourselves before Silver got the chance. This was, perhaps, even worse than the idea of Silver taking us in the morning. His triumph meant little compared to the position we were assuming; we who were already resigned to our fate.


	13. In Sickness and In Health

Chapter 13: Narrative Continued By the Doctor—In Sickness and In Health

"Is the Captain asleep again?" Jim asked, very late at night, after she'd said nothing for quite some time. He was still standing near the door, and as he asked the question, he straightened from his lean upon the frame, stirring from sleep Silver's morph. I looked up at Jim and shook my head, after watching the Captain's eyes slowly open and blink at the sound of her name. She sighed heavily, as though she could feel Jim's and my feeling of defeat, and opened her mouth.

"I'm thinking, Mr. Hawkins," was her reply, and she closed her eyes again.

After a long pause, Jim commented derisively that she must have forgotten what she was thinking about under his breath. "Hush, Jim," I said sternly, and he sighed. "She'll speak when she's ready," for I had given up trying to keep her from talking as a lost cause.

After a little longer, I heard the Captain's voice slowly lift up from where she lay. "Gentlemen…"

I leapt to my knees to hear her better, and even Jim hurried a few steps and looked over my shoulder at her. She slowly continued. "Gentlemen… we must…" she took two quick breaths and choked a little at the evident pain in her side, "…stay together, and…and…" Her thoughts had again muddled themselves, it seemed, and she gave up. But I was much too excited to have her quit now, for she hadn't said anything in a long time, and so I cried out at her, the strain of the long night, the impending fear of Silver capturing us, and the weight of our own resignation to have it so, increasing my volume.

"What?" I encouraged loudly and desperately, ripping off my glasses, "What? We must stay together and _what_?"

She lifted her ears and looked at me, almost affectionately, her eyes a misty emerald. "Doctor…" she addressed me softly, with the greatest of ease, "You have… _wonder_ful eyes."

Although later I realized that this was an exceptionally flattering compliment coming from her, it was not what I had hoped to hear her tell me at the time. With my glasses off, I could barely see more than a hazy blue blob of her, which made it odd to hear her say she thought I had wonderful eyes. It also was discouraging, because of its random, whimsical tone; this suggested she had not fully recovered. Panic-stricken, I turned to Jim and howled, "She's lost her mind!"

Jim, reacting to my panic, stammered hurriedly, "Well, y-you gotta help her!"

I lost all sense of control. What with the inevitable doom we were all facing, the dreadful conclusion I'd made, and the lack of sleep, I turned on Jim and shouted furiously, "Dang it, Jim, I'm an astronomer, not a doctor!" This made no sense to me whatsoever after I'd said it, hearing instantaneously afterwards the sound of the Captain's voice in my mind calling me 'Doctor', so I quickly repaired the statement. "I mean, I _am_ a doctor, but I'm not _that_ kind of doctor—I have a doctorate, but that's not the same thing, you can't _help_ people with a doctorate—you just… sit there, and you're _useless_!"

I banged my fists against my temples, frustrated and desperate, and Jim hurried to tap my right shoulder consolingly, and murmur, "It's all right, Doc, it's… it's okay."

I released my head and relaxed, quietly looking back down at the Captain, who had once again closed her eyes and remained unspeaking, but this time smiling serenely, as though she had at last relieved herself of a tremendous secret.

B.E.N, who had been striking up meager conversations or comments but had been otherwise unimportant throughout most of the night, struck in again, and attempted to reassure me, "Yeah, Doc! Jimmy knows _exactly_ how t'get outta this. It's just—it's just, Jimmy has this _knowledge_ of things!" and moved to speak quietly with Jim by the door.

I gazed down at the Captain once again. Her smile had faded, and she was lying peacefully, propped lightly upon the metal rising in the floor and my coat, with her head tilted towards her right shoulder. Her breathing was steady, and she appeared as though she had fallen into a doze. Slowly I touched her face and smoothed a fallen lock of hair from her eyes, wondering at the fiery satin that slid along my fingers. I sighed softly, my worry for her maintaining its magnitude unwaveringly. I was wallowing in the misery of feeling so useless to her when suddenly Jim ran passed me, a magnificent emerald light flooding the entire room from a far corner of B.E.N's abode. I looked up quickly to see Jim and B.E.N looking down into a dome that had a wide and gaping hole at the top of it, through which came pouring from the interior the mystic light that invaded our room. Jim, awe-stricken, murmured an inquiry, "Whoa… what is all this stuff?"

"You mean the miles and miles of machinery that runs through the entire course of the inside of this planet?" B.E.N answered, carefree, "Not a clue!"

Jim looked up at me wildly and exclaimed, "Doc! Doc, I think I found a way outta here!"

"No!" I reached my hand out to stop him, glancing back at the Captain, "No, Jim, wait! The Captain ordered us to stay together—"

Jim mounted the dome and sliced the air dismissively with his hand. "I'll be back," he promised, and dropped into the dome's opening, followed by B.E.N and the morph, and leaving the Captain and me entirely alone.

I almost chased after Jim, made him come back, sat him in front of the door and made him wish he'd never left. But I knew presently that I was in no way a disciplinarian to Jim, that I probably wouldn't be able to drag him back anyway, and that he might actually be able to bring the map, and our one true advantage, back into its rightful place with us. So I decided it might be better to let Jim go. I trusted him enough, and I didn't have the energy to contend with him.

Father Time seemed to drag his feet all through the while the Captain and I were there alone. I sat quietly, feeling somewhat isolated, since the Captain was asleep again, and I tried to find other ways of making myself useful.

First and foremost, I found the Captain's rifle (Jim had taken with him the flintlock the Captain had given him this afternoon) and reloaded it with the rest of the little ammunition we had, to better defend both the Captain and myself. With Jim gone, my awareness of the danger we were all in rose quite anew inside me, and I felt there was definite justification to finish off the last supply of laser pellets. Secondly, after a think, I scouted out the room to check and make sure no enemy had somehow gotten in and was waiting for the best moment to strike. No one was there, which I decided was the most obvious outcome, so I sat back down next to the Captain and prepared myself to wait until Jim returned.

When Jim did not return after several minutes of waiting I got up and patrolled the room again to make sure no one but the Captain was in the formation with me. Finding still no sign of any immediate danger, I slunk up to the door and peeked out. The fire at the pirate's camp was still going, and all seemed deadly quiet, and despite my assurances to myself that, still, 'no news is good news', I could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

But since there was seemingly nothing wrong regarding the threat of ambush, it occurred to me that either my intuition was unreliable or there was something the matter with the Captain.

So I hurried to her side and examined her. She was breathing steadily, and when I checked her pulse, it was quite normal. All seemed to be well at hand. "Maybe," I reprimanded myself in a whisper, "you should stop fretting over what your gut tells you and start depending on what your reason tells you: nothing is wrong!"

Convinced of my security, I sat back upon the growth raised from the metallic floor next to where the Captain was propped and sighed. "That's right," I thought aloud, quietly to myself, "nothing is wrong. You and Jim have everything under control. Silver won't be here until morning, and by that time Jim will have the map here with—"

But it suddenly occurred to me that I was not aware of the time. Morning might be only a few minutes away, and Jim would be on the ship and I would have to face the group of pirates alone, one man against a mob, one gun against many, and not only defending myself, but also defending someone who was in no condition to defend herself alone. I glanced at the Captain, worried again, and suddenly felt more afraid for her safety than for my own. She was much more important to me than I was.

I concentrated on the feeling, and slowly gained a little confidence as the realization crept over me. I was willing to put her before myself, and it occurred to me that, ever since we landed upon Treasure Planet, and even a little before then, I was and had always been her protector. I'd helped her with her wound, I'd stayed with her during her fever, and here I was ready to risk myself against an army of pirates to ensure her safety. I was her protector, and I felt convinced that as long as she was protected, as long as I kept safe, there was nothing for me to fear.

I slid the gun from my lap to the floor and turned to her, leaned close to her, and again touched the soft red hair along her forehead. As long as she was safe, I was safe, and for the first time all night I felt free from the burden of Silver and his crew, of the mutiny, and of the danger. I was there to keep her safe, and as long as she was safe, I was safe.

I fell asleep eventually, with my fingers touching the satin hair of Captain Amelia, and knowing very well how safe she truly was.

After a time, I don't know how long it was, I awoke with a start, and grabbed clumsily for the rifle. There was nothing wrong from what I could perceive, but I had felt the terrible agitation before I had awoken and now I sat rigidly beside the Captain and looked frantically around the room for Jim.

Jim still had not returned, and I quietly flew into horrible anxiety, fiddling with my glasses, checking on the Captain, keeping as still as possible, holding my breath to ensure silence, sitting, standing, until at last I found myself on my feet in the middle of the room, the rifle on the floor beside the Captain, and I wringing my hands and murmuring worriedly. I must have had a dream, or in my subconscious a thought had occurred to me, but I cannot remember exactly; I only know that I was now incredibly worried for Jim's welfare, and stood in the room wringing my hands and articulating my desire for him to return. "Jim…" I kept repeating quietly, "Jim, come back… You've been gone for quite a while, Jim… come back…"

There was a tormenting silence that seemed to last a lifetime, and then softly there was a clicking noise, and a whirring of mechanical parts, that echoed off the metal walls inside the dome Jim had used to exit through. I stood rigidly and silently in the room, listening so closely to the foreign sound that it was almost deafening, until at last a head appeared from the dome, silhouetted by the magnificent emerald light spilling into the room from the hole within it. With the face came a body, halved seamlessly in a fleshy and a mechanical side, entering with slow, unhurried confidence, until the intruder was firmly on his feet. Then from the mechanical arm came the click of a firearm.

"Who…?" I breathed, and trailed off. I knew who it was.

Silver chuckled ominously. "Not to worry, Doc. It's only John Silver and some of his friends, of whom you know and like real well. You like 'em real well, don't'cha, Doc?"

"You!" I choked. "You…!"


	14. Taken By The Enemy

**Author's Note:** It is with pride that I inform you: the very talented Homeric-Simile, author of the fan fictions _Jim Meets Ethan_ and _E Così per Vivere_, agreed to collaborate with me for this chapter to accurately render Silver's character. I personally feel Homeric-Simile is an indisputable Silver expert; she supplied all of Silver's dialogue in this chapter, and I can't thank her enough for so generously lending her talent to my story! Thanks again, Homeric-Simile! D

Chapter 14: Narrative Resumed By the Captain—Taken By the Enemy

I heard Silver's voice before I awoke. Initially I thought it to be the oncoming of another nightmare, and struggled to awaken. Strangely, the first thought that came to my mind as I emerged from my subconscious was the Doctor; I was almost cheered to think that when I awoke I would be able to speak with him. My side felt ten times better than the side it had been that afternoon, and breathing was much more comfortable. I opened my eyes and blinked in the dark, waiting to grow accustomed to the low light. I twisted my head round and found no sign of the Doctor in the dimness. I nearly said his name to summon him, when I heard Silver's voice swell inside the room.

For a moment my breath caught in my throat and I lay there rigidly and motionless, listening intently to the low voices that rippled in the room and quite suddenly acutely aware of my surroundings.

"What… What do you want…?" I heard the Doctor's voice, and then I saw his feet shuffle into my line of vision. I twisted my head about to see Silver at the base of an upturned dome, from which more pirates, like monkeys, were emerging from the hole at the top of it, illuminated by a seeping emerald light that flooded the room. I saw no evidence of Jim.

Silver made no attempt to answer. He only motioned to his crew, and they all moved in closer to us.

The Doctor again shuffled in front of me, and I realized that he was trying to conceal me from the pirates' eyes. He was not armed at the moment, and I silently cursed his carelessness when I noticed the gun was beside me only a little more than five feet away.

His effort to protect me was futile, for in no time at all the crew had swarmed about us, taking the Doctor by the shoulders as Aquanoggin and Meltdown took me by either arm and pulled me up to a sit. Wordlessly, but with an aggression that I could only assume had been built up during a long wait of anticipation, they ripped away the Doctor's sling from my left arm and my neck, worked my arms behind me to bind my wrists tightly together, and tied a piece of cloth firmly about my head and mouth. After all was complete, they left me upright upon my knees, my hands tied somewhat painfully at my back, my mouth gagged immovably, and the pain at my side an angered, burning flame licking up my rib. The Doctor had been tackled to his own knees beside me, and I could only watch as the pirates bound him as well. He sat quite passively as they wrenched his hands behind him, and I found myself growing more and more angry with the entirety of the situation, including the Doctor himself. I found it inconceivable that he could be so passive. Or, if he had to be so, I wished that I was not hurt, otherwise, at the time, I felt I really would have given Silver what-for.

Silver was standing aside, eyeing the Navigator's formation with a slightly confused expression. Then something must have occurred to him; something, he seemed to conclude in his own mind, was not right. He turned himself about where he stood, obviously looking for something, until at last he'd made two spins and stopped, quite angrily perplexed, facing me.

Like a cyclone he tore at me, his nails clawing my eyes and nose as he dropped to one knee and ripped my gag away. I could feel his breath slightly ruffle the hair that had fallen upon my face as he asked me the question in a hiss, "Where's the boy?"

This shocked me more than it frightened me; this was not behavior that corresponded with the personality he'd shown when I'd first met him. It felt like centuries ago, when we had all been on the Montressor Spaceport, readying to launch, with the crew unsatisfactory, but nevertheless obedient, and with Silver perfectly placid in the galley as cook. I lifted my eyes to this new man before me, a man who was not a cook or a hand, who was nothing but a pirate, some viral impediment who had planned on mutiny against me from the very beginning, and who had utterly deceived me to do it. My gaze bore into him—Silver, stripped of the personality he had so well pretended—and even his organic eye seemed changed. I realized then how bitterly I hated him.

I entertained thoughts of spitting into that altered, organic eye, but thought better of it. Instead I searched my mind for the answer he wanted. Now that I'd seen he was only a marvelous fraud, I had little to no idea of what he was truly capable of doing, and decided it was better to acknowledge his upper hand and let him have what he asked for. Unfortunately the truth was that I did not know Jim's whereabouts at all. I myself had, in all actuality, just learned that Jim was missing. I breathed shallowly, uncertain of what to tell Silver, when, to my incredible surprise, the Doctor spoke low and angrily, looking directly at Silver. "What?" the Doctor articulated, in a tone as stiff as he was, "You haven't killed him yet?"

There was no interval of time between the Doctor's words and the blow he received for their utterance. The back of Silver's organic hand struck him fully across the face and then Silver reared and stood without pause, startling the Doctor, it appeared, more than hurting him. The Doctor shrank from Silver after he had received the correction, and remained in the position, his head turned away, and his face crinkled by the reflexes that had originally put the expression there.

I found myself suddenly seething. Silver had stricken the Doctor, but it was as though the cyborg had instead delivered a blow directly to my heart. "You heartless, wicked, _brazen_ insect!" I erupted at him. "How _dare_ you strike him! You try my patience and have already taken _all_ my tolerance. Do that again and I'll see you to the gallows, I _swear_ that to you!"

Silver, standing before me a few feet away, began to shout at me as well, in the middle of my own ultimatum, so that we were both yelling at each other like a pair of angry children, "Cap'm, you're correct-- Cap'm… by thunder, Cap'm, _lemme_ _talk_!"

"_Talk_, then!" I spat, collecting myself. To hear him inform me that I was correct had somewhat disarmed me, and I fell quiet. From the corner of my eyes I noticed the Doctor began to situate himself and open his eyes again as one of the crewmen commenced to tie a gag tightly about his head.

Silver, placing himself upon a metallic rise opposite me, pulled himself into an almost familiar placidity, and executed something similar to a speech.

"Well, here's John Silver, dropping in, like, for a visit. My, come! I find that friendly; but you two look as though a man would if beholding Satan himself! Have I done anything to enrage ye with such passion? I see no reason for name-calling."

"With every possible respect you feel is deserved of such a noble maggot as yourself," I said venomously, but my tone overall quite soft, "I don't see any reason for you to throw your weight about."

With that Silver pointed his organic index finger at me as though I had touched on something worth broaching. "Right you are, Cap'm! And very correct you be, too, make no mistake. There be no advantage on either part to convey ill will; from now on, with your permission, Cap'm Amelia, we'll approach this diplomatically. Like friends, if you don't mind, where all is allowed to talk."

"Diplomacy!" I repeated sharply, repulsed. "Do you actually expect that I believe I can trust _you_ with diplomacy?"

With Silver's fraudulent personality now removed, his intelligence and demeanor almost astounded me. Silver eyed me a moment, deliberating, and at last peered over at one of the pirates through his one organic eye, and after a few moments, the gag that had hitherto been tied about the Doctor's face was now loosened considerably. The Doctor glanced at me for only a moment, and then looked away, very quiet.

"Does that prove any loyalty to me word for you, Cap'm Amelia?" Silver asked after this charitable deed had been executed. I smiled at him wryly and said, "You could do so much more than that to prove to me you are trustworthy, sir."

There was a small moment where he watched me severely, and then he resituated himself slightly and began again. "So," Silver said, sitting back and revealing his pipe, "Cap'm. The boy—Jim if I'm not mistaken—his whereabouts, ma'am? And where you've so kindly kept the treasure map for my obtaining."

I scoffed at him, sneering, "I tell you now, and listen well, my _diplomatic_ friend, for I won't tell you again-- I do not know where Jim is, and even if I did, you would get neither the map nor Jim's whereabouts from me. I would never help you succeed, galley cook; I would rather see him, you, the ship, and this whole blasted planet blown completely from the Etherium and into _flotsam_ first!"

Silver's pipe was smoking. My side was again a torture, for I had been talking relentlessly, but I could not have cared less at that point. My patience had indeed dried up entirely; unfortunately, it seemed as though Silver's was evaporating as well.

"...That's something, to be sure," Silver at last granted, with a tip of his pipe in my direction. "You're a right bold creature, Cap'm, and loyal to your duties and mates alike with notable unwavering. As to your response, I don't rightly know that I, as only one living being, can blow all those things you recommended into flotsam, but I was able to notice something weak in your powerful unwavering, Cap'm, and that is that you failed to say you'd prefer to see _yourself_ blown into flotsam before you gave away Jim's whereabouts."

This was a trifle to me at first. Whether or not I'd failed to mention myself within the catastrophe I'd wished upon Silver was unimportant in that I'd failed to consider myself. But it quickly occurred to me that this was a bigger problem: it made me sound as though I was more willing to die than see Silver run away with the treasure. I suddenly felt horrifyingly cold.

Silver continued with his promulgation, activating a small flintlock from his right mechanical arm. "I could always pick you off if it pleases you…"

I could think of nothing to do but stare at him. My left side tingled, the pain slowly beginning to dwindle, and I was sickened by the fact that the irony of the pain in my side subsiding just as I was facing an ultimate destruction was the only thing that came to my mind.

The Doctor sat beside me, having been constantly silent, but constantly aware. Through my peripheral vision I saw him look at me warily, but I did not look back at him. He looked again at Silver, whose gun was cocked toward me, the pirate more than willing to pull the trigger. Silver's arm moved warningly. The Doctor took a breath, causing his shoulders to rise, and then he nearly shouted at the cyborg, the whole of him shrinking away as he did, "No! No…! Jim is on board the _Legacy_…he's trying to recover the map. We never, ever had the map-- Jim's… trying to get it back. Please… don't kill her."

I was thunderstruck. I could have attacked him mercilessly and thanked him miserably at the same time. He'd saved my life, but he'd given away everything we were holding onto to do it. I sighed, lowering my eyes to my knees. For a reason I'm still not sure of to this day, I felt disappointed in him.

"Well!" Silver smirked, marveling at the Doctor's articulation, and replacing the gun back into his mechanical arm, "and there's something else! You two make some of the prettiest lost souls in the worst kind of pickle, to be sure."

Here, Silver proceeded to suck on his pipe, all the while eyeing the Doctor with some great interest. After blowing some evil-looking smoke out of his mouth, Silver raised the pipe at him as though a toast, and returned genuinely, "I'll give it to you, Doc: you're a right good man as to save her life, as the case looks to be, and to answer my question so concisely. I tell you, sir—upon me honor—we haven't seen hide nor hair of the cherub since my talk with him this evening, and what's more he hasn't been killed by any of these clods behind me, so therefore you haven't much to worry."

The Doctor looked as though a magnificent weight had been lifted from his shoulders, but he never did look at Silver after his outburst. I was again looking up at the cyborg in front of me, prepared once more to argue our cause.

"We're relieved; Jim's absence did indeed cause us concern. And now, Silver, since you have everything you want and we are of no further use to you, I will thank you to kindly liberate us from your most undesirable clutches."

Silver eyed me, not angrily as before, but not with his artificial placidity, either. "I can't do that for you," was his response. I exhaled quickly in angry surprise. "Why not? We're of no use to you. You know where Jim is, you know where the map is… You know we never even had the map to begin with! We can give you neither thing asked for; we have no provisions of which you can steal, no ammunition… For what purpose would you wish to keep us if we can do nothing more for you?"

Silver squared himself solemnly in his position opposite me, and his tongue clicked when his lips parted to speak. "Now, look ye here," he said, "I don't say nothing as to you or the Doc. You never have been one point neither for me nor against me the whole of this voyage. I've a head on my shoulders just as the like of you, and I know when a game's up, and I know when t' give n' take. Cap'm, you still c'n do more worlds for me than y' seem t' realize. Though, if I were in your place, I'd've pr'bly asked the same favor."

He paused, and then said evenly, "Look at me," and he opened his arms wide as though to allow my observation, "What am I? I'm a poor old salt, that's what I am. Nothin' more'n a lubber, and a sorry one at that. I been brought up with mercy, just as the richest child ever were, too—and I know the value of it. I know th' want for it. But, by gum, Cap'm, you a _pris'ner_! Same as th' Doc. Do a man who's scratched by his whole life, and who's smart enough to know he's got his last chance before his blessed eyes, just let it slip away? Cap'm… _look at me_. You're my last two cards. My last vile chance at what I've groped for m' entire life. Y'see this leg, arm, eye of mine? T'ain't me. No sir. Poorly born, but born whole, Cap'm. My right side was casualties… given up in the pursuit of this truculent planet. Y'see, I've been after this and the map and the gold for more than thirty years. And that close to losing hope!"—and here he snapped his fingers for me—"and that all I lost and sacrificed for the dad-blasted thing was to be for nothin'. But here I am, and I got you, with Jim right behind… and I can just _feel_ the map. The map that'll lead me to what I've long since dreamed for and even more so what I've paid for."

"Cap'm, I'm within a half a' plank of death. I can feel that, too. Any man with somethin' in the way a' sense in his head c'n conjecture up real close that you plan to see any mutineer swing easy. You act so and I know so, and I'm thinkin' on that bit a' rope so that my neck's stiff already. Maybe ye've seen 'em—poor corsairs displayed on that foul gibbet? Hung by the neck and as cold as stone, with the Mantabirds buzzin' around 'em, and men watchin' from incomin' ships. 'This is what happens to those who practice piracy!' is the message from those poor bones a-swingin'! And a man'll take it into account fast. Y'c'n hear them men on the ships, Cap'm! One of 'em says, 'hey, now; who's that?' and t'other one says, 'why, that's Long John Silver, with the missin' side. I've heard o' him many times,' and then they float away. A poor old salt like myself, within thirty years cast off towards the means o' finally getting to where I am now—with my last two cards and a couple of winds still in me—I think I'll hold fast to 'em, which means I can't set them free."

Silver's discourse was silencing. Apart from the reason that I had not expected him to have analyzed his situation so closely, so precisely, and so somberly, but also for the reason that, in B.E.N's formation, with his crew about him and the Doctor and me bound and subordinate before him, it seemed as though he had translated his entire feelings, fears, anticipations, and frustrations for us through it, and it was such a broad glimpse of the true man I beheld before me that it was chilling. I didn't speak at all after that. I couldn't.

For a long while we all sat in silence within B.E.N's formation, which was probably the reason why we heard Jim Hawkins's return so easily. Silver, maintaining the smothering silence he had rendered, slipped from his perch, grotesquely smiling. He waved a hand at Turnbuckle and Pigors, and they obeyed his unspoken command by dousing the light in their lanterns. Silver then pointed at the Doctor and me, and Schwartzkopf and Moron came to us, gagged us again, and held us firmly in their arms to ensure that we would not escape. Silver took his place deep within the shadows of the formation, as did the crew, and in a breath the place seemed entirely empty.

I closed my eyes tightly and then opened them again, vehemently apprehensive, and could almost sense the Doctor beside me wither as Mr. Hawkins entered the formation again through the dome washing light into the room. After helping B.E.N up into view, he hurried toward Silver's position in the shadows, whose form he had mistaken for the Doctor's, and he smiled, tossing a golden copper sphere into the air, letting it gleam in the strange emerald light before catching it again. He whispered hoarsely, but triumphantly.

"Doc! Doc, wake up—_I got the map_!"

In the same strange, emerald light that dimly filled the room, a luminous machine also gleamed as it slipped out of the shadows. Silver's mechanical hand whirred and clicked, taking grasp of the map as Jim fearfully realized his error. Silver smiled at Jim, almost having returned to his old placidity, and said, looking with lurid complacency at the map, "Fine work, Jimbo. Fine work indeed."


	15. The Treasure Hunt Begins

Chapter 15: The Treasure Hunt Begins

Jim Hawkins's immediate reaction to the pirates' presence within the formation was to contend with them and escape. The crew moved slowly from the shadows of their locations and came at him, and he got a fast glimpse of the Doctor and me in our captivity before he fled for the front opening of B.E.N's formation. He was barricaded from escape, however, by most of the crewmen, as they moved between him and the door. So Mr. Hawkins skidded to a halt and turned the other way, and as he fled back to the dome, he shot passed some of the pirates, and it seemed almost as though he might make it. Luck was not on our side, however, for in the next moment Meltdown raced after Jim, and soon after, seeing Jim struggle against Meltdown's hold, Turnbuckle ran to Meltdown's aid. Jim had shortly been imprisoned by their grips.

Silver was standing smugly before the Doctor and me, and when Jim Hawkins was presented to him by Turnbuckle and Meltdown, he chuckled mockingly. "You're just like me, Jimbo," he observed serenely, bowing his head enough to be at eye level with the boy, "You hates t'lose." Jim did nothing but watch Silver contemptuously.

Silver straightened again, chuckling as though he'd at last gotten the final word, and twisted both his hands about the map, attempting to open it.

This reminded me of something that I'd almost forgotten in the perilous events of the mutiny: Jim Hawkins was the only one with the knowledge of how the map was activated. I glanced quickly at the Doctor, who was sitting upon his knees with his eyes closed, quite resigned. But I looked back at Silver, now on perhaps his third attempt to open the spherical map, and reckoned up with optimistic rationalism that perhaps not all was lost, and that we didn't have to resign to our aparrent defeat just yet. If Silver was never able to open the map, the Doctor, Mr. Hawkins, and I still would still possess the ultimate advantage.

But now that Silver had failed a fourth time, I noticed dauntingly that Jim was watching Silver, obviously amused, with a ridiculing smile. Silver noticed as well.

"Open it!" he commanded hotly, holding the map out to Jim and planting it heavily into the boy's released hands. Mr. Hawkins hesitated, seemingly unsure of what to do. His eyes wandered for a moment, indecisive. Silver activated his right arm, and the same flintlock lurched into view, replacing his hand. Jim's eyes shot up at him.

"…I'd get busy," Silver warned him, and motioned at the Doctor and me, again threatening to pick either me or the Doctor off if Jim refused to open the map.

Silver was playing his last two cards.

Jim's gaze bounced about, looking at everything in the room as he tried to think, until at last his eyes fell upon me, and he looked at me almost questioningly. I rigorously shook my head to signify that I did not want him to open the map, but his gaze quickly bounced off me and landed on the Doctor, and then his eyes searched the floor.

Silver's gun clicked.

Jim looked scornfully at Silver, and to my indescribable regret, he began to press the buttons upon the map in what I supposed was a specific pattern. When this had been accomplished, the map separated into distinct parts which he twisted around, until at last the golden-copper sphere split into eighteen pieces, and an emerald light seeped from the interior, illuminating the entire room in less than a second.

Small pixels of a deeper jade color emerged and spread about the room, and for an instant I expected to see the Doctor's dome, according to the description he'd given me of the hologram in my stateroom after the launch. This did not occur, however. Instead, the glimmering holograms gathered together in the center of the room, high above all our heads, and formed a depiction of Treasure Planet itself. Silver murmured wondrously as we all motionlessly watched the holographic planet take shape. Then, the moment the depiction was completed, it imploded upon itself, starting with its northern hemisphere, and the pixels that had originally shaped the image of the planet ran from the interior of B.E.N's formation, aligning themselves into a thick cord of emerald light that led outside, bent sharply, and pointed east.

Silver raced after the beam of light to the door of the formation, and followed the rest of its travel with his eyes. It must have extended a far way off, for he stood there gazing at it a while before he turned, the green light shimmering in his eyes, and commanded in his cold, authoritative, and intelligent tone, "Tie 'im up," and he gestured at Mr. Hawkins, "an' leave 'im with the others until we—"

But Silver's order never reached completion, for, just as quickly as it had come, the emerald light, the beam leading from the door, and the pixels all vanished again within the map. Twisting about, I caught sight of Jim's hand tightening around the map, clicking the eighteen pieces back together and closing it.

"You want the map?" Mr. Hawkins said decidedly, with remarkable determination, "You're taking me, too."

Silver stared at him. It seemed as though Silver was not patient enough anymore to argue Jim's decided edict, and I feared for Jim's safety, but only for a moment. Silver soon smiled, only a little, and chuckled, not without some irritation, and I was reminded once again of the only weakness Silver possessed.

Silver raised his head and spoke to his crew, conclusively, after a small pause. "We'll take 'em all!"

A longboat was loaded with pick axes and shovels and other tools for delving in the dirt, and as soon the whole crew was aboard (which was a tight enough squeeze), the Doctor, Mr. Hawkins, and I boarded the craft as well. We were all considered prisoners by the pirates, and thusly there was dispute amongst the crew on whether or not Jim should be bound and gagged as well. But Silver tore in positively like a rhinoceros, called them all asinine ninnies, and demanded from them the reason why Jimbo should be bound, and for what advantage should Jimbo be gagged? For what reasons, when he's so benevolently agreed to take part in the winning party, and help them open the map, and help see to it they get their fair share, down to the last farthing, and get his share, too, for that's what he's done: transferred, and in the nick of time, too! Silver shook a ferocious fist all around, and observed that perhaps they should tie up _him_ as well, who was not only loyal to the cause, but the blessed chieftain as well! No, he supposed, they wouldn't, so neither would Jimbo, being one of their own, and far better than their own, too, perhaps, he not being as dizzy and air-headed as the lot of them.

And that settled the dispute.

However, ultimatums were not done with quite yet, for, just as soon as the entire crew had gotten aboard and we were prepared to cast off, Jim Hawkins, at the bow with Silver, announced suddenly, "I'm not going to open the map for you if you don't untie and take the gags off of the Doctor and the Captain."

Silver reared in astonishment for an instant at this, and I could hear the crew around the Doctor and me grumble and scoff. Silver soon collected himself and shouted over his shoulder at his men, saying that if they would only hold their horses for a moment, he might discuss terms with the boy. There was then a fair amount of murmuring between the two, murmurings of which each and every crewmen scooted up a little to better their chances of hearing, until at last Silver hailed a buccaneer, announced a compromise had been made, and gave the command to remove our gags. There was an immediate and dissident uproar to this order, but Silver shouted and banged his fist against the longboat until the order was obeyed. They removed the Doctor's gag first, and then mine, and with that the longboat made its launch into the air.

There was a warm, misty gold at the tip of the horizon, seeping into the sky at an imperceptible rate, revealing the coming of the morning as we sped along at a low altitude above the ground. Jim Hawkins had opened the map again and the thick cord of green light had extended itself fully to the gold burning in the sky near the horizon, leading us at long last to the discovery of Flint's Trove. There was little talking, even amongst the crewmen, and I felt an odd state of concord between our two adversary causes. There was, for the time being, no apparent need to be worried for either of the Doctor's, Mr. Hawkins's, or my safety, for the pirates seemed much too concerned about the retrieval of the treasure to be, at the moment, any threat to us.

We saw a good amount of the strange, untouched terrain of the planet as we skidded about and above it; moss and short grass, peculiarly resembling mold one might discover growing on an old piece of bread, covered the entirety of the planet's floor. There were also eerie, massive growths with very thin stems that sprouted above the ground and shot passed the level at which our longboat was zipping along, and bloomed several feet above our heads into bean-shaped balloons. Some of the taller ones possessed a rather acrid odor, a defense, I assumed, which the coxswain came to try and avoid when we could. The smaller of the sprouts still towered above us, and they were really quite interesting to behold.

There were other plant species, such as an odd type of green underbrush that rose and dipped in its formation, like an inchworm, with its many millions of roots partially above the soil, taller or shorter as their area's height determined, which made the plant appear to be a gigantic, frozen centipede crawling along the ground. Treasure Planet certainly proved to be an alien environment, and I could not help wondering at its landscape in partial fascination, until all of a sudden the longboat skidded to a halt and levitated in the air as Silver hailed the driver that the longboat would no longer be useful to us.

In front of the longboat, there was a dense thicket of small, fan-shaped plants that waved about like hands, that were perhaps four or five feet taller than Silver himself, who stood at a rather notable height. The fans were much too thick to get through with the longboat, so Silver hopped down from the bow as the driver lowered it towards the ground, and commanded that, from here, they'll be hunting treasure the old fashioned way: on foot.

When the longboat hovered perhaps four feet off the ground, the crew sprang over the sides as well, pick axes and shovels in hand, and Jim Hawkins slid out after them with the map, B.E.N, and Silver's pet Morph trailing behind. Meltdown was assigned to keep watch over the prisoners—the Doctor and me—he being handiest with pellet and shot, and so corpulent that the rest of them felt he would risk slowing them down.

After all was arranged, Silver tossed his head skyward and analyzed the glowing green beam that was still pointing the way towards Flint's infamous gold. It had taken on a certain design that resembled the shapes and lines on the map itself, which spun rhythmically about the original cord of light. Silver beamed, obviously having interpreted what he thought these signs might mean, activated his mechanical arm to replace his hand with a cutlass, and, grabbing hold of Jim's shirt, called, "We're gettin' close, lads! I smell treasure a-waitin'!" And off the treasure hunters went, Silver in the lead, hacking away with his cutlass the stems of the fan-like plants that stood in his path, and leaving us alone with Meltdown.


	16. Doctor Doppler Takes the Jolly Boat

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Chapter 16: Doctor Doppler Takes the Jolly Boat

There was a silence as Meltdown watched the pirates leave, firearm cocked towards us threateningly, before he turned to the Doctor and me and growled in his broken English, "Any talking dat is done, you will get head blown off!" And he enthusiastically demonstrated, pointing the gun at his own head and issuing an interpretation of the sound of an explosion through his lips. He then flailed his arms about to signify that his head had been successfully blown off and that insides were thusly going everywhere. He then chortled loudly, turning round in his seat to leave us in our expected misery.

I let another pause go by before I struck up genially, "Jolly good of you, my man, to sacrifice your share of the treasure to keep watch over us for your mates."

The Doctor looked at me warningly.

Meltdown spun about like a top and faced me again, the flintlock held skyward at his side. "Whut?" he asked me, gruffly perplexed, as though he had thought of something he hadn't before and couldn't believe it. "Nothing," I continued spiffily, "Your large sacrifice for your pirate friends has simply occurred to me, and I wanted to be the first to praise you for it. It's admirable, I should think. I'm sure they are all thankful to you for it."

"Whut 'bout my shares?"

I smiled. "Your shares," I told him, as if he was already aware, "why, are the rest of the pirates' shares now. They'll take it, I've no doubt, and I've no doubt you already knew this. What an honorable thing to do, Mr. Meltdown! Someone had to stay and play sentry, and I think it a notable thing that you would sacrifice your share of the treasure and do that for them. I call that integrity, and you've shown a mighty amount of it this morning!"

Meltdown looked positively bemused. His head was spinning, and his eyes were writhing in their sockets like a man who had been betrayed by a lifelong friend. "My shares!" he shouted after a while, and I could see that a rage was broiling up inside him. "If dey takes my shares…!"

He got up and he stomped about, rocking the longboat violently with his impacts. The Doctor fell over on one side and wormed his way to the tip of the stern in a fit of terror as Meltdown's huge fists came down upon the bulwarks of the longboat and gave us a rather steep tip to starboard.

Meltdown's tantrum over his gold lasted a long while. He shouted and swore, stomped and kicked and cursed the crew, specifically cursing 'Cap'm Silver', for he felt certain that this was exactly what Silver had planned, and cursed Turnbuckle and Scroop for being so close to Silver, and then he cursed Birdbrain Mary, for he was certain that she'd be the first at his shares, and he supposed he might as well. When he had finished, he cursed them all around again, to make his curses doubly good and harder to be rid of, and then he collapsed at the tip of the bow, for he had quite worn himself out.

With the heavy, wheezing breath of the exhausted Meltdown still audible at the bow, I twisted round to look at the Doctor, who was sitting as far from Meltdown as he could. After a time, he slipped back towards me and sat down beside me. We sat for a little while in silence, listening to Meltdown catch his breath, until the Doctor whispered in a scold, "I thought he was going to kill you."

I smiled, a little softly. "No," I said. "I knew he would get too distracted about his gold."

"You _knew_?"

"Well… I felt it likely."

The Doctor situated himself a little on the longboat seat and sighed reproachfully. After another pause, he asked quietly, "Why did you tell him that if you knew he would get so angry?"

I looked at Meltdown, who looked at me, and who then looked away. "I'm disappointed…" I replied, leaning toward the Doctor and whispering quietly. "I had hoped that hearing that would send him after the rest of the pirates, and then we could take the longboat for ourselves and get back to the _Legacy_."

"Ah."

Meltdown then waved a hand at us with the monition, "I still blow heads off!" and he picked up his flintlock and waved it about as well. "Nobody talks except Meltdown!"

So, still imprisoned, the Doctor and I were silent again for a long time.

For the duration of that silence, Meltdown was quietly livid. He would grumble evilly at the bow, and pout, head in hands, and pick up his flintlock and grumble loudly, "If dey take my shares…" and with that he would hold the gun in his lap for a long time. Then he would get up and pace, and stretch, and laugh, and say, sometimes directing the statement unnervingly at me, "If dey take my shares…!" and he would ball a hand into a fist the size of a melon and beat it into the open palm of his opposite hand, and then he would sit down.

The rope around my wrists was beginning to hurt a little, as did my side if I sat in one position for too long a time. I would sometimes try to situate my position in the longboat, but Meltdown would have his gun whipped up again, pointing it at me, and I would immediately have to sit still again. His jealousy had not died down, and I was beginning to regret having made him so angry. But what was done was done, and I decided that I couldn't take it back, and that the Doctor and I would have to endure it, whether or not we ever were to successfully break free.

When my side was again beginning to get uncomfortable, I moved my shoulder a while to see if I could do nothing about it and yet keep still. I winced every now and again, and the Doctor leaned confidentially towards me and asked in a low whisper, "Are you all right?"

"My side is… bothersome… a little," I told him vaguely. "Are you uncomfortable?"

"Yes; my rear is asleep," the Doctor told me, and I chuckled a little, when suddenly Meltdown heard us at the bow and shot up angrily. "I _told_ you I blow _heads_ off! You are keeping the talk! Well, I fix dat!" And he hurried towards us and wrenched me up by the shoulder. "You will be sitting here now!" and he guided me roughly onto the seat behind the Doctor, so that we were back-to-back, with his hands touching mine. "Now," Meltdown said hotly, "Let's hear you talk like dat!" and he tromped back up to the bow.

The Doctor's fingers moved, brushing mine, as if in an attempt to comfort or encourage. I did nothing to respond to his touch, feeling somewhat ridiculous and foolhardy.

There was again a reigning silence that prevailed for a time, until finally, with alarming suddenness, Meltdown sprang from his seat and roared with frustration. "They are taking my shares!" and he stooped again among the firearms the pirates had left with him, and he began to grumble soberly, loading all the guns. We could hear him talking to himself: "No good, rottin' pigs, all 'ub'm! Let dem take the shares-- when dey comes back, I pick dem off with guns, an' take my shares and their shares back! Let 'em take my shares, I will be taking dem back," and he laughed uncontrollably, having loaded and checked the priming of all his weapons. He sat back again, serene at last after a long while, and, for a little while, he was silent, until he told the Doctor, "I pick you off, too, you two, since I am might as well. You see me pick off pirates, can't have you two witnessing alive." I felt the Doctor go rigid in a breath. I myself felt quite lost.

There was a silence again, except for the occasional laughter of Meltdown. That was daunting enough, to know that we were waiting there for the pirates to return, only to witness a massacre, especially since I was the one who had told Meltdown the initiating fib that they were going to steal his shares. I sat quietly, feeling rather nauseated, when a strange rumbling in the distance was audible among the trees. I heard it again and came to the conclusion that it might be thunder, but when I heard it a third time, I realized that the sound did not seem to roll from the clouds but from the earth, and the land trembled slightly when the rumble was audible. I strained my ears to listen, attempting vainly to make out what this new sound might be. Behind me, I felt the Doctor's fingers move again, brushing mine softly, warmly, the same caressing marble they'd been yesterday. I turned my head toward him involuntarily at the touch, and I was almost surprised to hear him begin to speak, in a tone that seemed nostalgic and apologetic.

"…All my life…" he began, and I turned my head a little more to listen, "…I dreamed of an adventure like this." I narrowed my eyes a little in mild confusion. It was not simply the fact that he had always dreamed of an adventure, but also that he was now on one and did not sound fulfilled that surprised me. For once I could not predict his motivation for speaking. "I'm just sorry I couldn't have been…" he continued, and turned his head toward mine remorsefully, "…more helpful to you."

I looked down at the floorboards of the longboat and reviewed his participation in almost determined resolution to prove he had been the most helpful thing that had ever happened to me. To my greatest relief, and indeed, in all actuality, he had been extremely helpful. Had he not been a help in navigation, when the map had not been opened? And had he not told me of the magilla so that we could use its energy to escape the black hole? And had he not been the one who helped me through my friend's death? He was also the one who did everything he could for me when my injury had reached a kind of climax. I realized at that moment, not without some astonishment despite my determination to prove it, that he had been an important asset to the expedition. And yet here he was, apologizing for having been useless. I shook my head. "Don't be daft…" I said quietly. "You've been very helpful… Truly."

His head turned away despondently, and I could feel him wring his hands behind him agitatedly for a moment before he took a breath and declared in agony, "I feel like such a _use_less _weakling_!" and I felt his hands whip away. I was prepared to ask him just how he'd gotten his hands out in front of him when his hands were bound _behind_ him, when he added peculiarly, "…with abnormally thin wrists."

Now I intended to ask him just what he meant by that, when he placed his hands behind him again and unexpectedly addressed Meltdown. I shall own that I was rather favoring the assumption that the captivity and hopelessness of the situation had at last taken effect on him, but that proved not be the case; in fact, I am to this day extremely proud of the way the Doctor handled himself.

"Excuse me, brutish pirate," he said casually. At the bow, Meltdown was scratching himself, and in reply to the Doctor's address, belched loudly. "Yes, you," the Doctor allowed. I found myself going against my role, for I was not supposed to know he was up to something, so I turned my head quickly away. "I have a question," the Doctor continued, and at his next words I had to look up again in shock, for I was so startled by them, "Is it that your body is too _massive_ for your teeny-tiny head… or is it that your _head_ is too teeny-tiny for your big, fat body?"

Within no time at all Meltdown had covered the distance between himself and the Doctor and, lifting him off his seat by the collar and raising a fist, he said, quite insulted, "I pummel you good!"

"Yes, I'm sure you will," the Doctor agreed quickly, and I was again frightened by Meltdown's declaration that the Doctor would be harmed. "But," the Doctor added, "before you do, I have one more question." And before Meltdown could respond, the Doctor's hands came out from behind him and nabbed the pirate's gun from its holster. As he pressed the nozzle of the stolen firearm against Meltdown's belly, he asked sweetly, "Is this yours…?"


	17. Some Say the World Will End in Fire

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Chapter 17: Some Say the World Will End in Fire

Meltdown was assuredly the angriest he had been that morning as the Doctor rose to a stand, hurried to untie me, and then turned back and aimed the laser flintlock at Meltdown's head. "Now, Mr. Meltdown," he said, in a most authoritative way, which I had to laugh aloud at, for it sounded very much like me, "if you would be so kind as to sit as still as you can while I tie you up…"

The Doctor handed the flintlock to me and in no time at all, Meltdown was bound at both the wrists and the ankles. The Doctor then armed himself with one of the many firearms Meltdown had previously loaded at the bow.

When it was certain that Meltdown was in sufficiently tight custody, the Doctor and I turned our attention to the longboat, the safe rescue of Jim Hawkins and the _Legacy_, and the capture of the remaining crewmembers. I regret to admit that the Doctor and I turned it into a rigorous dispute, during which we batted it about determinedly, as though we had all the time in the world to disagree. In reality, we wasted time that was even more precious than I realized, for the planet's core still rumbled the surface with low and rippling tremors that told of a more violent opponent than what would have ever occurred to me.

Nevertheless, I battled it out with the Doctor, unaware of the danger that was rapidly thundering towards us. It was my conviction that we round about and seize the _R.L.S._ _Legacy_ first and then retrieve Mr. Hawkins, for I felt that holding the ship would give us another major edge in the mutiny: it would arm us with the cannon, return the provisions that were aboard, and provide a big enough hold for all the pirates to be prisoners in. The Doctor, however, felt that we should immediately head out to rescue Jim, arguing that we had all the weaponry the pirates had left with Meltdown, so there was no worry of being out-shot. Also, with every pirate in attendance to the entourage in search of the treasure, there was no plausible way we would lose our chance of regaining the _Legacy_ later. This argument went on for a time I cannot precisely tell, until a disturbance some distance off caught our attention and stopped the dispute momentarily.

The Bio Electronic Navigator was flailing his copper limbs nimbly in the air as he, at top speed, made his way toward us. He was still perhaps a little less than a quarter-mile away from the longboat, but was already causing such verbal commotion that the Doctor and I were compelled to sit in perplexity and wait for the little robot to reach us.

"Make a run for it!" was the first thing I could discern from his distant hails, and when he at last reached the longboat he shouted loudly, "She's goin' up! Run for yer _li-ives_!" And with that the copper robot buckled over at the waist and leaned upon his knees, breathing heavily in every good attempt to catch his breath. The Doctor was the first to ask B.E.N for an elaboration.

"This whole thing's goin' ka-blooey in no time at all! We _really_ gotta get a move-on!" the robot tried to clarify.

"_What's_ going 'ka-blooey'?" the Doctor demanded, and by this time I, too, had to inquire upon what the automaton was talking about.  
"This whole planet! We found the treasure thanks to Jimmy, an' boy was there a lot of it! Jimmy found my memory chip, too—Flint _pulled_ my memory circuit an' Jimmy found it in his long dead, boney ol' hand! But _why_ did Flint pull my memory circuit, you ask? He pulled it so that I wouldn't warn anybody about his _booby-trap _that he left so that no one could steal his treasure! And now that booby-trap been _activated_ and it's goin' to make the whole planet go _sky-high_!"

As if to confirm B.E.N's declaration, there was another rumble that shook the core of the planet and ricocheted through the surface, and this time the thunder was much louder, and the tremors were quite detectible. I shot a glance at the Doctor.

"We've _got_ to get Jim. Now you _really_ can't convince me otherwise."

I was about to comply, when, to my greatest shock, over the hills came the crew, running and tripping and shouting for their lives. After some moments I realized they were scrambling towards us, calling for Meltdown. I grabbed up the flintlock as the Doctor retrieved his own, and as the crew came scuttling towards us, I hailed them with finality.

"Gentlemen, Mr. Meltdown is at the moment incapacitated! The Doctor and I are in control of this longboat, and I suggest that if you want off this planet you come quietly and accept defeat! If you do not comply with that, I do hope some higher entity takes pity on you, for I most certainly will _not_!"

As it dawned on the pirates that roles had been switched and they would now be prisoners, they slowed in their advancement perceptibly. Their shouting ceased and they looked as though struggling to contemplate their options. Then, suddenly, another tremor shook the earth, this time with increasing violence, and they again began to tumble towards us at a rapid pace, one of them shouting, "Heave to, lads, and accept whot's come! We got better chances with this 'ere cap'm—blimey if we've got a _prayer_ with any 'igher entity!"

The crewmen bumbled aboard over the port side, and very nearly tipped us over. The Doctor and I bound them as best we could and assigned them all to the sparse amount of thwarts left over from what B.E.N, the Doctor, Meltdown, and I had left them. It was a tight squeeze for all of us, and before I attempted to elbow my way to the tiller so as to maneuver us towards the east to retrieve Jim Hawkins, I turned to the Doctor.

"Forthrightly, Doctor, I must say that no amount of effort will make this longboat efficient enough for all that we must maintain," I observed. The Doctor eyed me severely and then opened his mouth to protest, but I continued before even a syllable of his argument was uttered. "I realize your first priority is Mr. Hawkins' safety, but you must remember that I have the final word, and I feel the best thing for is to head for the ship first. Mr. Hawkins," and then I saw his wan expression and added, "…and _you_, Doctor… will be quite all right."

The Doctor swallowed hard but presented no contest, and I launched us heavily into the air and made our way to the _Legacy_ as quickly as possible.

The _Legacy_, I could see upon reaching her, had been quite bothered with in our absence. The first thing we saw as we approached was that the Jolly Roger was not waving above the mainmast. The pirates wondered at this in confirmed defeat, and it suddenly felt as though John Silver himself had been stripped from his stolen pedestal. But that was not all, by any means: the cables in the engine room had been pulled and then plugged back again, carelessly, and the cannons had been neutralized. Some of the cables had even been ripped entirely from their respective outlets. The pipes in the longboat bay seemed to have been bumped about, and some of them had been so battered they no longer possessed a perfect alignment. This had released soot into them, and I left it as impossible to repair at that moment. The rigging that rose and took down the flag on the mainmast had been cut, and the bottom half of it was all that remained hanging lifelessly from the crow's nest. The other half was nowhere to be seen. Lastly, some of the provisions had been gotten into; the Doctor suggested some sort of scavenging creature from the planet, but the crewmen said more the likely it was Scroop, whom they had left aboard the _Legacy_ to look after it. Indeed, it seemed plausible; most of the rum was missing, and in its place many empty bottles. The pirates were more impressed by this than the severe absence of their spider-like sentry.

All the while I inspected the ship as the crewmen and the Doctor followed me, B.E.N's anxiety was growing. He would tap the Doctor on the shoulder, whimper into the crew's ears, and finally tugged at my sleeve with a tentative, but urgent sound.

"I'm not sure how much time we've got, Cap'm, but I really, _really_ think we gotta go get Jimmy. The planet's—"

To finish his warning, the planet shook violently, and the sound of thunder from the planet's body was suddenly a daunting roar. I lifted my ears at the noise as the crew huddled into a tight knot behind the Doctor and me, and I turned to the Doctor. "Prepare the hold for our weak-hearted buccaneers, Doctor," I commanded shortly. "Get rope that is _thick_, now, sir… and to your liking."

The Doctor smiled and hurried to the hold. I turned to the crew and bid them into the shrouds; before they were to be imprisoned beneath the deck, I needed the hands to release the sails.

The tremors came in more frequent, longer and violent intervals as the hands retrieved the sails. The thundering roar issued a broad crescendo, and soon we were all shouting at one another over the sound of it, a practice, I found, was still a very painful fight to accomplish because of my injured side. The hands clung to the shrouds when the tremors were so intense it reached them, and I had them release the astral anchor as fast as possible to decrease our connection to the shuddering earth. The Doctor reported back to the bridge and shouted that all was prepared for our guests, and I shouted at the hands to follow the Doctor down to the hold, and at that very moment felt a ripping pain rocket through my left side, and I fell promptly to the bridge floor.

B.E.N turned out to be the hands' escort to the hold. The Doctor was kneeling beside me in a breath, and placed a gentle hand upon my shoulder. Shocked by both the pain and then the impact of the floor, I choked a good bit before I could find it within my self to prop myself upon my elbows and tell the Doctor I was perfectly fine.

The Doctor's tongue slid skeptically along his teeth, slight irritation lining the corners of his mouth. "Can I say without your wrathful reaction that I don't believe you?" he asked lightly, but with quite a serious expression. I concentrated upon the shooting pain in my side as I slowly pushed myself to a more upright position, and said lightheartedly through clenched teeth, "At this particular moment, Doctor, undoubtedly."

The Doctor laughed softly and helped me to my feet. Another tremor shook the planet terribly, and with my less sure footing, I fell flatly upon the Doctor, who braced up and caught me from another spill. There was a moment during which I leaned heavily against him, his arms about me and my hands thrown upon his chest, until I realized the position I had put us both in, cleared my throat, and straightened.

There was a strange orange and fiery crimson smoldering in the sky, laced with a thin, even smoke that wove the blazing horizon together. The roaring of the planet was now incessant, and my face stayed close beside the Doctor's, in order to communicate without having to raise my voice. I felt oddly at ease so close to the Doctor, but this was the least acceptable time to be thinking about that, and so I made my way to the helm, with the Doctor supporting me every step of the way. At last I grasped one of the pegs. B.E.N shouted that all was ready to launch, and I nodded that we could now get underway. B.E.N's metal chest sprung forth a small circular plate and he connected himself to the ship, as all Navigators do, and called up the compass.

"We're goin' east, right Cap'm?" he shouted, and I shouted back he was correct without any thought. Again my side flared up in bitter anguish, and I gasped, gripping the helm in both hands and wincing obviously. The Doctor was again beside me, and I looked up at him with frustration.

"I'm in no condition to do this," I admitted angrily, forcing myself back up. The Doctor nodded, unable to disagree. "Then, Doctor," I breathed against the din of the planet, "take the helm."

"No," was the Doctor's mechanical response, but I scoffed laughingly and took hold of his hand. "That was not a request," I replied, my breath returning to me. I placed his hand deliberately upon the helm, and he took hold one of the pegs. Looking at me with blatant uncertainty, I clapped him on the shoulder and said grandly, "Don't worry, Doctor. I shall help you."


	18. With So Little Time

Chapter 18: With So Little Time

The horizon took on a blazing crimson glow as the _RLS Legacy_ ascended into the air. Smoke billowed in the sky now where once only threads of it had filtered through the atmosphere. The air was hot and moist, almost noxious to inhale, and the landscape which had once been a lining of green foliage now seemed to have been completely burned away, to reveal an unexplainable metallic-looking floor that glowed brightly in the heat. The rumbles that kept occurring were ever-increasing in both noise and magnitude, which shook the very core of Treasure Planet to the point that I fancied the explosion was being triggered from within the planet itself. In fact, the whole of Treasure Planet, with its environmental features burned away, now more rightly resembled a massive machine than an ecosystem.

The Doctor, under my guidance and with much less confidence than he revealed, directed us into a rickety launch and we sped hastily to the east in the direction of the sun, which had now fully risen, and was smeared and blended to the point of invisibility in the fiery blaze of the sky. The rumble and shudder from Treasure Planet's core was fully affecting the surface now, and was rocking the earth with a tremendous thunder. Tremors split the ground into long, jagged chasms that ran erratically across the planet's floor, spitting from them a strange yellow and orange liquid and steam.

"Keep your head, now!" I called in a thin voice to the Doctor, who was attempting crazily to avoid the spontaneous flares of the geysers below us. "Don't watch the helm, Doctor—keep your eye ahead of you!"

"Captain, I—"

"Concentrate, Doctor!"

"Aye, Captain, I just—"

"Doctor, _look out_!"

And as the Doctor whirled the helm involuntarily to the right at my cry, one side of a newly created chasm jutted up like lightning, directly in front of the _Legacy_, shooting upward and upward until it towered over the mainmast and lurched to a stop.

I heard the Doctor murmur something dumbly in awe at the new, glowing wall crowding the left of us, and then instantaneously afterward we heard a spitting sound of boiling liquid, and then the same tell-tale thunder from the earth's core trembling. And with that, in intense rapidity, another wall rocketed up from the planet's ground to the right of us that made the Doctor shout in surprise. Again by instinct, he whirled the ship to the left, sending us careening into the first wall that had taken him so by surprise.

The impact made my teeth rattle, and in such close proximity I could actually feel the heat of the blazing, golden metal wall that we had crashed into. The _RLS Legacy_ grinded harshly against the wall as she drove onward, throwing sparks, until at last we passed the huge wall and feebly recovered. B.E.N began calling a damage report to me, but I could tell even from where I sat against the mizzenmast that there was not much. Instead I drove my concentration to the Doctor.

"You've got to think more tactfully than that, Doctor!" I called to him admonishingly. The last thing we needed was an incapacitated ship. I understood that the Doctor was just learning, but he had to learn faster than this.

"I'm sorry, Captain," the Doctor called back, watching ahead of him intently as we sped enduringly onwards. "I'm afraid I'm not very good at thinking on my feet."

I shook my head. "You simply lack the experience," I told him over the constant roar of the detonating planet. "I _believe_ you can do this, Doctor. But I also believe you can do it with much more tact than what you're showing me now."

The Doctor clutched the helm in both hands. "Simple!" he replied, with no genuineness in his tone that I could perceive. The spitting of boiling water again spluttered to our ears, and soon after the Doctor narrowly dodged another fiery geyser flare. "Can you give me a hint as to how one thinks more tactfully?"

"Trial and error, Doctor—surely you've noticed the sounds that come before the obstacles! The geysers—"

"That spitting sound…!"

"Yes, and the planet's rumbling and new chasms occur just before another wall comes up! You've got to utilize as many of your senses as possible, and that means you _listen_ as well as you watch! Now, Doctor—shall I stop yelling at you so you can listen to what's actually important?"

The Doctor's grip on the helm tightened perceptibly. "Aye, Captain," was his only response, but I intuitively felt that he was concentrating with a little more acuteness and confidence than he had begun with.

The planet's unpredictability went on, increasing as our time declined with worrying rapidity, but the Doctor managed by trial to learn little by little what to do and how to react to the different scenarios the planet threw at him. By the time we reached the place where Silver had left us to seek the treasure on foot, which could only be identified by B.E.N, for the terrain had become so altered in the planet's destruction, the Doctor acted a bit more sure of himself.

"We all headed that-a way!" B.E.N pointed in the direction that Silver, Mr. Hawkins, and the rest of the crew had traipsed in pursuit of Flint's hoard, and we made our way thusly, under the eccentric, but overall indispensable guidance of the little copper automaton.

We wasted very little time to follow B.E.N's directions, and as we closed in upon where B.E.N said the hoard of gold had been found, an emerald glimmer that could just be perceived greeted us with an eerie, haunting shine. I was absorbed by the source of the green light which marked our destination: a massive, mysterious isosceles triangle looming above the horizon as we stole onwards, which glowed a phenomenal, alien green. It was suspended in the air by what seemed to be nothing at all; it simply stood there, tall and imperious, like a triangular eye watching our advancement dauntingly.

"B.E.N!" I shouted hoarsely as we speedily approached the spectacular triangle. "Can you tell me what that is?"

"That's a portal, Cap'm! Flint's portal, the one he used to get in and outta' here alla' time, and the only one that leads directly to his treasure!"

I looked back at the looming shape, and within closer vicinity of it I realized that the environment within its perimeter differed obviously from that of ours. The place within its perimeter had already been destroyed far more. "Are Mr. Hawkins and Silver _inside_ the portal?" I asked in astonishment.

"If they're smart, they're not!" B.E.N replied. "It's opened to the center of the mechanism, and that's where the explosion that'll blow this whole planet up will activate! Jimmy's gettin' far away from it as fast as he can if he knows what's good for 'im!"

"You said _mechanism_, B.E.N?" I called over the planet's roar. B.E.N, tapping madly at the plate protruding from his chest, nodded hurriedly. "Yeah, Cap—Treasure Planet is really just one _really_ _big_ machine! That's why it could be rigged to blow!"

As we neared and the Doctor slowed the _Legacy_ slightly to coast to a stop, we realized a magnificent, metallic drop-off had been created in the planet's depletion, one that Mr. Hawkins and Silver would never have managed to brave unless they had gotten out before the ledge's creation. The portal was magnificently huge; the _Legacy_, or even a larger ship, could have easily driven through it, and silently I marveled at the thought that this portal had been the method Flint used to appear and disappear so many times long ago. Directly below the portal was the huge cliff that had been created, so that the triangle stood on its own island, cut away from the rest of planet's land. At the foot of the portal was a small, green hologram that closely resembled a globe.

As the Doctor steered our slowing ship to the ledge of the cliff, we spotted Jim Hawkins and Mr. Silver leap through the portal door and onto the cliff at the base of the portal. They both then paused to look back at the destruction within, and I thought fleetingly of the fate of Flint's trillions of gold.

"Aloha, Jimmy!" the little navigator bellowed to the two. Waving his hands, he gesticulated at the navigation device that protruded from his chest while informing them frantically, "Hurry, people! We got exactly two minutes and thirty-four seconds 'till _planet's destruction_!"

"Now," I called in a thin voice once again to the Doctor, preparing to guide him through docking the _Legacy_ next to the cliff so that Mr. Hawkins and Silver could board her. "You're doing fine, Doctor—now, ease her over gently—"

The Doctor, listening with renewed anxiety, reared the ship to starboard and slammed the hull into the side of the drop with a deafening clatter.

"—_Gently_!" I repeated exasperatedly, after the impact had already taken place. The Doctor looked over his shoulder sheepishly, and try as I might to eye him reproachfully, I could not help but begrudge him a forgiving sigh after a moment.

Jim Hawkins and Silver scrambled aboard and I turned hastily to B.E.N, commanding, "Take us out of here, Metal Man!"

With a quick salute and an 'Aye, Captain', we took off anew, this time back to the west, venturing as speedily as we dared to clear the planet's explosion. Making his way up the companionway to the bridge, Silver—the same placid, amiable and fraudulent man he ever was—put on the very first face he ever gave me and grinned with a benign demeanor. "Cap'm!" he exclaimed breathlessly, leaning over the railing of the companionway as Jim Hawkins passed him in his ascent. He lifted his cloth hat in my direction to demonstrate his utter relief and gratitude, saying, "Ye dropped from the heavens in the nick o'—"

Having tasted so much of Silver's fraudulence, and even having been shown his true, intimidating, unpredictable and intelligent duplicity, the last thing I wanted to hear was this false blather of a Silver that was in no way a genuine representation of the man I now knew I beheld. Straightening with indignation, I snapped at him before he could finish his sentence, "Save your clap-trap for the judge, Silver."

He had been correct about one thing back in B.E.N's formation, when the Doctor and I were on our knees in front of him: I planned on seeing any mutineer swing. Easy.

The planet was breaking apart quickly. The metal body of the massive machine lay in puzzle piece-like bits and separations, and from these rocketed hot geysers, melting metal, white beams of light that tore apart anything that connected with them as they shot into the air, and huge conflagrations that flared from the core. The air was filled with horrible heat and smoke, and the sky was no longer a smear of red and orange and gray; it was now a solid, intimidating crimson.

Explosions were happening within the machine below us as we sped frantically to the west, and from these smaller detonations shot blazing pieces of rubble and debris. They were large, most of them, and they flew uncontrollably in the air in any direction possible, adding to the confusion and terrible turmoil it was to fly our ship as successfully from the explosion as the planet allowed without being destroyed ourselves. We were soaring blindly onward, the Doctor at the helm, Mr. Hawkins on the bridge, and I propped on my feet against the mizzenmast, as the planet broke apart and the destructive forces from within the planet's core burst through the surface to demolish the great machine entirely.

Mr. Hawkins had only just come to the bridge when a shard of rubble from the destruction around us careened into the mizzenmast and tore the top half of the mast from the bottom half, assailing the mizzen topgallant and topsail. The clamor of the mast's halving dictated all of us whirling around to see the top half of the mizzenmast plummet to the main deck, just missing where we stood on the bridge and instead shattering the cannon on the starboard side of the deck. Most of the cannon was flattened, but the impaction dislodged the cannon's compulsory device, which fires the laser balls from the mouth of the gun. This part tumbled onto the deck, its power glowing with remaining vitality inside it, despite the loss of its encasing.

We all watched the disembodiment of the mizzen mast with horror, and then in a haze I heard B.E.N rattle out the damage report.

"Mizzen sails demobilized, Cap'm! Thrusters at only thirty percent of capacity!"

"Thirty percent?" I heard the Doctor echo. Frantically I tried to recalculate our chances of escaping with only thirty percent thrust. Going at the full speed we still had, we would move only a little over half the rate we had been moving before. With so little time still available to us we needed all the power we could manage, but with only thirty percent thrust all the power we could manage still wouldn't be enough. As the realization dawned on me, the Doctor turned from the helm to look at me, the same horrible epiphany coloring his face a pallid hue.

"That means…" he articulated quietly, "we'll never clear the planet's explosion in time."


	19. It All Comes Down to One

**Chapter 19: **It All Comes Down to One

I saw Mr. Hawkins flee to the rear of the bridge to look back at the portal behind us, but I gave him little heed.

Desperately I considered a way out of this. The planet was detonating. We only had a sparse amount of time. I searched my mind dizzyingly, coming up with nothing, scouring my thoughts in demolishing vain, until at last I looked up at the Doctor in defeat, wanting terribly to ask him what we had to do.

"We gotta turn around!" I was answered, but not by the Doctor. Jim Hawkins sprang from the bridge railing and landed heavily on the main floor, running for the smashed cannon on the opposite side of the deck. "_What_?" I choked after him, placing my hand back upon my side and looking over the railing of the bridge. Mr. Hawkins, still running for the ruined cannon, threw a finger eastward, indicating to the ghostly portal that still loomed in the midst of the destruction. "There's a _portal_ back there!" Jim explained exasperatedly. "It can get us _out_ of here!"

I glanced back at the portal behind us. The interior was a mass of exploding terrain and huge conflagrations that were far worse than what we had to brave outside its perimeter. The Doctor articulated my observation. "Pardon me, Jim…" he said, smoothly at first, but with a franticness that increased with every word afterward, "…but isn't that portal opened on to a _raging inferno_?"

Jim had reached the cannon and was pulling it apart. From the rubble he extracted a sheet of metal that had the shape of a rectangle, with one end tapering into a point. This he looked over quickly and accepted, calling back to the Doctor as he worked hurriedly. "Yes! But I'm gonna change that!"

I lifted my eyes back to the portal as Jim called, "I'm gonna open a _different_ _door_!"

"Captain," the Doctor responded to Mr. Hawkins's plan. "Really—I just don't see how this could possibly—"

But a gruff, intelligent and familiar voice cut the Doctor short. Silver had descended to the companionway's base and was headed for the deck, stopping to shout an angry and decided order back to the Doctor and me: "_Listen to the boy_!"

I inhaled a short breath, rendering a shard of pain in my side, as I heard B.E.N above the noise shout, "One minute, twenty-nine seconds 'till planet's destruction!" I was indeed listening to Mr. Hawkins, but I also felt it was a futile attempt to turn around and go back. That was where the explosion was initiating, that was the point of complete annihilation. With so little thrust capacity, even if Jim was able to make it there and open the portal to a different location, would the _Legacy_ be able to keep up?

Mr. Hawkins and Silver seemed determined to put this plan to action. Jim was desperately trying to attach none other than the compulsory device that had been dislodged from the mouth of the cannon to his sheet of metal with a rope. Silver waved Jim away when he reached him, throwing his mechanical hand into his arm and extracting a machine that welded the compulsory device and the metal sheet together. Then the two of them lifted the heavy concoction and set it on the bulwarks of the ship. I studied their new contraption, now that it was in full view, and was astonished to find that it loosely resembled a very hurriedly-made solar surfer. Jim Hawkins mounted it.

"Now," Jim told Silver loudly, racked with urgency, "no matter _what_ happens, keep the ship heading straight for that portal!" Silver nodded slightly, a quick, anxious, loyal jerk of his head, before Jim hesitated only a moment and then, when B.E.N dutifully shouted, "Fifty-eight seconds!" he thrust his heel into the device's activation lever and flew away.

Silver wasted no time. "Well, you 'eard him!" he yelled at us ferociously, gesturing all about him as he spoke. "Get this blasted heap turned 'round!"

I could do nothing now. Whether I felt this plan had a chance of accomplishing what we all so desperately needed it to or not, Mr. Hawkins had launched himself toward the portal, and I couldn't simply ignore that. Besides—it was the only plan we had.

"Doctor," I commanded quietly. "Head us back for the portal."

The Doctor looked at me with deep, concerned brown eyes, but presented no argument, and wheeled the helm about as he murmured reluctantly, "Aye, Captain."

As the ship tacked back to the east, I caught a small glimpse of Jim Hawkins roaring passed the horrific destruction of the planet and fully realized the utter danger he had put himself in. A profound agitation thusly took hold of me, and as the little form of Jim on that hazardously constructed, flying sheet of metal zipped out of my vision a great deal ahead of us, I turned quickly to B.E.N and roared, "Give me whatever full speed you can manage, but blast it, sir, make sure we're moving _fast_!"

B.E.N complied in a flurry and we shot onward only a little faster than the speed our dismembered mizzenmast had left us with. Nevertheless, we careened through the smoldering, fiery death of the star at the speed we possessed, trying desperately to dodge the exploding, blazing terrain of the planet that shot up and spat, ablaze and destructive. The Doctor, concentrating in a panic on the terrain in front of him, called back to me hoarsely, "Captain! That compulsory device from the cannon—how many canisters does it have?"

"Canisters?"

Canisters! The device had only so much energy, only so much fuel it could hold, that likewise Jim had a limited supply to propel his manufactured vehicle to the portal in the east. I searched my memory in confusion as I tried to remember how many canisters the _Legacy's_ cannon design held. Then I remembered.

"Three! There are three, Doctor!" I shouted, as hoarsely as he had, and inducing a sharp jab of pain in my side.

"Three!" The Doctor repeated, aghast, as his panic reached well over his head. "Let's hope that's enough to get Jim to that portal!"

The _Legacy_ trailed desperately behind the erratic course of Jim's flight back to the portal, narrowly dodging the lurching walls from the chasms, the geysers and the horrific white beams that shredded anything that got in their way. The Doctor wheeled the ship with blind luck, scraping by massive golden walls and barely missing the deadly white flares. His panic having come back to him and my own feeling of panic probably affecting him, he was fumbling mightily. I took to shouting at him to put myself at better ease, which didn't do very much good, although when I yelled at him which direction to go and he in his panic would obey, I felt more in control of the helm. But mostly I think it frightened the Doctor.

"_Dodge_ that bloody thing, Doctor! Eyes _open_ now, man!" I persisted nevertheless.

The Doctor wheeled to starboard and shouted in fright as he just missed the hull getting ripped open by a white beam.

"Port! _Port_!" I shouted.

"Port is right, isn't it?"

"Port is left! Go to the left! _Left_!"

Obeying me, the Doctor barreled the ship to the left and rammed the hull into another wall, scraping off one of the ship's tailfins at the starboard stern. I roared at him the rather obvious remedy.

"Now to the right! The _right_!"

Finally the Doctor turned on me. "I _know_!" he burst out. "I _know_! Will you just let me _drive_?" And he turned back to the helm. Needless to say, I didn't do as much directing after that.

"_Twenty-five seconds_!" B.E.N cried.

I averted my concentration to the progress of the _Legacy_ as she hurtled toward a massive chasm shredded into creation by the planet's detonation. The portal was growing ever closer, at a snail's pace compared to the declination rate of the time we had left. The green isosceles triangle watched our desperate advancement as though an apathetic eye of Treasure Planet itself. I staggered to my feet with frustration at our hideous situation, the ship drawing closer to the portal and yet seeming never to reach it.

At that moment I heard the Doctor cry out to me with genuine fright, and I will own it pained my very being to hear it.

"Captain! _Do you see Jim_?"

Mr. Hawkins had been lost to my line of vision for some time. The Doctor's inability to see him now, however, was of incredibly more importance, for he had surely been keeping him in full view so as to follow him and make sure to keep up. I shot my gaze over the burning landscape all around us now, fighting down a feeling of panic I hadn't felt for a long time. I couldn't see Mr. Hawkins either.

"No, Doctor! I don't…" I shouted weakly, this time indifferent to the sweltering pain in my side. The Doctor was shouting hoarsely.

"He started to fall! He was flying over that chasm and I watched him start to fall…!"

On the deck near the bow I caught a glimpse of Silver hugging the bulwarks, in the very same place Jim had left him.

A bitter grief and sickening heaviness washed over me as I listened to the Doctor, still looking beyond him into the vast blazing pyre of Treasure Planet for any sign of Mr. Hawkins. All I could see was the green and watchful portal that we were still now pointlessly careening towards. We had lost Jim Hawkins. And with him our last fleeting chance of survival.

"He must have run out of canisters…" the Doctor finished, losing the volume in his voice.

"_Seventeen seconds!"_ B.E.N called shrilly.

We were now shooting towards the portal with no hope of escape by its means. I fell back against the mizzen mast and stared at the Doctor's back as the _Legacy_ swept over the chasm.

And then I heard Silver yelling excitedly. B.E.N had started counting down from ten.

We had reached the portal. The fiery inferno that awaited us inside its perimeter was the only thing we had left. I didn't know what to think. I barely recollect if I was breathing.

Then the Doctor shouted. I rose from the mizzen mast at his shout and at that moment saw a small image of Jim Hawkins on his makeshift solar surfer dart out from underneath our hull and rocket toward the small globe before the portal. He was alive! And he was reaching out to the holographic globe at the base of the Flint's portal to deliver us from Treasure Planet's detonating pyre.

B.E.N was counting down.

"Seven!"

"Six!"

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Two…"


	20. And Last

**Author's Note:** Forgive me for not getting this chapter up sooner! (sobs) I apologize! I hope you had as good a time reading this story as I had writing it. Here it is: the last chapter of _The Captain's Papers_, with my deep gratitude to all of you who read and reviewed.

Chapter 20:

It was very quiet.

There had been a deafening explosion which now seemed to have been left behind us, as we very turbulently sprang into the wide blue quiet that was suddenly our trajectory. I cannot remember what my position on the bridge finally was when we were flung out into open space again, but I do remember that I had to lift my head; when I did I saw the Montressor Spaceport looming, white and welcoming, only perhaps an hour's distance away.

It was then that I heard the fiery rumble of streaking fire as we escaped the incredible explosion of Treasure Planet.

I got to my feet; I had realized in intervals that I had gotten knocked down; and I turned round just in time to see the luminescent green of the portal snap shut, locking the depleted remnants of Treasure Planet on the other side of it. With that the portal was once again hidden in the Etherium, returned to oblivion where at the time I thought it well belonged.

And then I saw Mr. Hawkins zip from below our hull to high above the masts of the ship, and a relief sank into me so great I could almost taste it. Silver was flying across the deck, waving his arms above his head, hurrying in the direction Jim was going, whooping and crying aloud from sheer excitement, calling, "Ye done it, boy! Ye done it, Jim!" The crew below was also shouting and crying and stomping their feet for joy, and I daresay I heard some of them break out into song. At some point during this time the Doctor finally found his feet, and despite my already utter and overwhelming joy, seeing him standing there alive and well was more relieving and incomprehensibly wonderful than anything I have ever known.

We had gathered each other into our arms long before either of us realized it, and although it has never been habitual of me to take hold of anyone without due warning, this spontaneous embrace felt exactly right. I was nestled in the arms of the same man that had supported me when Arrow was lost, had carried me when my injury prevented me from walking, and had tended so kindly to me when I had fallen ill. Even though at the time it had not truly registered that I had so inappropriately flung my arms around the Doctor, I recognized a sense of comfort and safety knowing I was there in his arms.

In one moment I had tightly embraced the Doctor, and in the next moment the Doctor tensed slightly and I realized the Doctor was also holding onto me. We both stiffened at this new interval, eyes wide with horror at what the other must now think of us. I myself was feeling absolutely ludicrous. I heard a humiliated part of me rebuke my behavior, reverberating inside my head, constantly arguing that I'd just thrown my dignity out the window—what the Doctor must think of me! I shall own that for a moment I was rigid with fear as to what he might be thinking, but at the same time I wondered at why I should worry so about what he must think. I was not here to impress him, and yet through the course of the voyage I found that not only did I trust his impression and opinion, but somehow it had become so important that I desired it. With this in mind, I found enough strength within me to relax, keeping my arms about him.

He slowly did the same. Recovering from the embrace now, I turned my head slightly away, but I held his gaze a while longer. I couldn't help allowing a slow smile to spread slightly (and rather coquettishly, in retrospect) across my face, but when he followed suit and smiled down at me, I let it go entirely unchecked. He hadn't seen me smile enough on this cruise.

The crew was still singing and shouting and making a lot of noise, and while for the moment nothing sounded better than remaining there a little longer, I was becoming burningly aware of the captain I was still obligated to be. I loosened the embrace a little and observed to the Doctor confidentially, "I suppose I shall be delving deeper into this situation we've created for ourselves sometime soon."

The Doctor's smile broadened. "I was hoping you would," he replied. I laughed and pulled gently away, once again recovering my captain's composure.

At that moment Jim dismounted his manufactured craft with a flourish and landed heavily on the deck. He was met by a very exuberant pet Morph. I let my gaze avert to Jim there on the deck, watching him with rather rocked admiration; the teenage boy who had saved us all. I looked back at the Doctor, who had also caught sight of Jim and was smiling proudly. "And what shall we do with him?" I asked, indicating Mr. Hawkins.

The Doctor tilted his head and looked at me thoughtfully. "We'll take him home; his mother's going to be very proud of him."

"As am I," I inserted, looking back down at him. He was by now dissolved in laughter, for the Morph would not stop licking him. "Does he do well in school?" I inquired.

The Doctor's brow knitted and he then cleared his throat. I lifted an eyebrow.

"It doesn't matter," I laughed shortly, and then disclosed, "I think I know just the place for him. How does the Interstellar Academy sound? I attended myself, so I can safely say they like precarious ploys like the one Mr. Hawkins has demonstrated." I patted the Doctor on the shoulder, smiling, and moved from the bridge.

I was followed to the gangway by the Doctor, and together we descended to the deck to congratulate Jim Hawkins. The Morph relieved Jim of his bath, and as he straightened the Doctor and I made our way to him, I on Jim's left and the Doctor crossing to his right.

"Unorthodox," I began with mild incredulity upon reaching Mr. Hawkins. I allowed myself a breath of laughter at my surprise, "But—_ludicrously_ effective."

Jim gave me a large, cocked grin at my praise, and I continued, only barely able to contain my pride in him, "I'd be proud to recommend you to the Interstellar Academy. They could use a man like you."

Jim's reaction could only flash through his bright blue eyes before the Doctor turned him enthusiastically around and gestured eagerly, "Just wait until your mother hears about this!" Then his features softened and he gently winced. "Of course, we may downplay the life-threatening parts," he added with precaution. Jim nodded in agreement.

"Jimmy—" B.E.N suddenly came up behind me, wanting his turn. I moved toward the Doctor and we took a place adjacent to the two as the Navigator began to express his enthusiasm. It was when Jim finally hoisted the little robot off his feet and embraced him thoroughly that the Doctor placed his arm gently around my shoulders. I looked up and smiled at him, allowing my features to soften considerably. I cherished the smile he gave me in return.

It was not long before I took to the bridge again. With the quiet I felt quite fit to steer the ship home by my own hand, but the Doctor very graciously insisted upon staying with me on the bridge to keep a close eye on my welfare.

I had never seen a more beautiful sight, before or since, than the sight of the Montressor Spaceport just an hour's distance from us after such a trying experience as this voyage, which was now drawing towards a close.

You can imagine my face; I very complacently watching as the Cresentia slowly drew closer and closer, when all of a sudden I saw the last of the _Legacy's_ longboats tack away to the opposite direction of the Cresentia, with a single driver at the tiller. He was heavy, unshaven, and at first glance might have been one you would consider honest but dim-witted, but who was in reality a misleading, fraudulent, bafflingly intelligent old cyborg. Split in half as much in loyalty as he was physically, he had the ability to make even a person who was tied fast to his convictions feel torn between the perceptions of what was right and wrong. I daresay as I watched him depart I felt a glimmer of gladness that even John Silver was finding liberation.

It also seemed to me that I couldn't let him escape, however, but it finally won out that I let him go; it would have been ridiculous of me to turn the ship about and give chase, and I had to admit I was relieved to be so easily quit of the man.

And that is the end of it. Of course, in many ways it could be considered that the end of this account is truly the beginning of other stories it gave way to: Jim Hawkins was accepted into the Interstellar Academy and is doing so well one may take the liberty of saying he is thriving. Jim gave his mother, Sarah Hawkins, more than enough money that he was somehow able to salvage from the doomed Treasure Planet to rebuild the Benbow inn she had lost to a fire. She is now the keeper of one of the loveliest inns I am aware of on Montressor, taking the old Navigator B.E.N in as a helping hand to the Benbow inn's business. And the Doctor and I—we managed very well to delve into the situation we'd created for ourselves, and I am now very happily married to him, and the mother of three daughters and a son that looks just like his father.

As far as Treasure Planet goes, I do my best to hear no more of it from old hands or Etherium fellows who might still tell the tale. I've kept the story to myself for a long while, and now I've at last succeeded in retelling it to you through this account. You may, now that you have born with me, draw from this document your own conclusions; if you believe Treasure Planet is indeed a story told to children before they sleep, that is your own business. But if you take my story to heart, and do believe with all your fancy and logic that such a place did exist, then you are most certainly in my full confidence. Tell it to whomever you please, but tell it with accuracy; and mind you now beware of the man with a metal arm and glistening eye, for he is as real as you may consider Treasure Planet to be.


End file.
